Ex Machina IV: Monroe Vs AK
by JBean210
Summary: A.K. is a pretty tough hombre - he routinely eats Voldemorts for lunch - and breakfast and supper - snacks, too! But has he met his match in James Harrison Monroe? Based on Dimension Hopping for Beginners, by nonjon
1. World 1423, AK 37

**Ex Machina IV: ****Monroe Vs. A.K.**

**Chapter One  
****World #1423 / A.K. #37  
****"The One Who Can't Hold His Romulan Ale"**

**Published 23 May 2010**

_World #1423, Little Whinging_

A.K. appeared inside a house that seemed similar to number four, Privet Drive, but was different enough that he was instantly on-guard. The layout was subtly altered, as if it were constructed in the same style but with a different floorplan. A. K. looked around the room he'd arrived in, trying to figure out what he was seeing.

It was the sitting room of the house, as it was just off the main hallway from the front door, but the room had been extensively altered from the original intent. The room itself seemed huge, much larger than would be expected for a house this size. The walls were lined with bookshelves that seemed to stretch well beyond the normal height of the house — A.K. decided that wizard space had to be involved. Instead of normal furnishings such as armchairs, sofas and coffee tables, there were a number of luxurious-looking leather recliners, with marble lamp tables next to each one, though there seemed to be no lamps anywhere in the room, oil or electric bulb, though the room was well-lighted.

"Ah, there you are," a voice said, and A.K. spun toward it, instinctively adopting a defensive stance. The voice had come from the far end of the room, where a brown-haired man in a smoker's jacket, black slacks and loafers was sitting in one of the recliners, a book in his lap. "Come in, A.K. — I've been expecting you. Have a seat."

A.K. slowly walked over to the man, his senses alert for any hint of danger. He had expected to find this world's Harry Potter at his arrival point, not this man, whoever he was. The man seemed affable enough, and A.K. wasn't getting a danger vibe from him, though his Legilimency could not penetrate the man's Occlumens-shielded mind. "Do you mind telling me who you are, first?" he asked, foregoing any meaningless banter.

"Not at all," the man replied. "I'm James Harrison Monroe."

"Am I supposed to know you?" A.K. asked, blandly.

"At least one version of you did, a long time ago," Monroe answered. He tossed the book in his lap into the air, where it continued to float upward, sliding into a space in a bookshelf high above them. A.K. wondered if that had been meant to impress or distract him, or perhaps both, though it had accomplished neither. "I know that you're a Harry Potter."

"_A_ Harry Potter?" A.K. smiled. "I'm a very special Harry Potter, I would say."

"I would agree," Monroe nodded. "You're doing something very few Harry Potters are able to do — you're a dimension hopper."

"Clever of you to know that," A.K. admitted. "How'd you figure it out."

"I do a little dimension-hopping myself," Monroe told him.

"Really?" A.K. was a bit impressed — the magic necessary to perform the act of moving from one dimension to another was quite complex. "For what purpose?"

"To kill Voldemorts," Monroe replied.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

After mentally digesting that information, A.K. took out a pack of cigarettes. "Do you mind if I smoke?" he said, pulling one from the pack without waiting for a response.

"Yes, I do mind, since you ask," Monroe said.

"So why're you wearing a smoker's jacket?" A.K. inquired.

Monroe shrugged. "Just to piss you off."

A.K. smirked, then cast a wandless spell to light his cigarette. But the tip of his smoke had no sooner started to glow than it went cold again. A.K. frowned, then took out his wand and touched the tip to his cigarette, silently incanting the spell to light it. Nothing happened. He looked at his wand. "Fuck, what's wrong with this thing?"

"I guess I've made my point," Monroe said, smiling. "Go ahead, smoke up." The tip of his cigarette suddenly glowed red, and A.K. took a satisfying drag.

"Thanks," he said, with a touch of irony in his voice. "That's a pretty neat trick, keeping me from smoking." His voice turned hard. "_Don't_ do it again."

"Just don't blow any smoke up my ass," Monroe retorted.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" A.K. wanted to know.

Monroe shrugged, then stood up. Standing, he did not seem very impressive—at least from A.K.'s perspective. He was a little less than six feet tall and did not seem particularly physically fit — he wasn't thin, but not overweight, either. He just didn't give the impression of being very toned. His skin, though not as pale as the Malfoys, was still a pasty off-white, typical of a person who spent no time in the sun. "I suppose you'd like to know why you're here," Monroe said at last.

A.K. snorted, amused. He glanced around for an ashtray. Seeing none, he made a point of dropping the butt on the carpeted floor and grinding it under his heel, just to see what the other man would do. When he pulled his boot back to look, however, the butt was gone, as if it had never been there.

"Tidy," A.K. noted.

"I like to keep the floor clean," Monroe replied, blandly. "If you need an ashtray you might conjure one, or ask next time."

"I'll keep that in mind," A.K. said, not quite sneering. "So, d'you want to cut to the chase an' tell me why I'm here?"

"Sure." Monroe pointed to a recliner facing the chair he'd been sitting in. "Would you like to have a seat?"

"Why not?" A.K. turned to the chair, surreptitiously casting a wandless magic detection charm on it, looking for hidden curses, jinxes or other malefic effects that might be triggered by his sitting in it. The charm revealed nothing, and he dropped casually into the chair, pulling out his pack of smokes for another cigarette. As Monroe sat down in the opposite chair, an ashtray appeared next to A.K.'s recliner. A.K. smiled at it, then at Monroe. "Thanks," he said, taking a drag and flicking the excess ashes into the ashtray.

"Just being proactive," Monroe smiled. "Would you like something to drink?"

A.K. considered a moment. "What d'you have?"

His host shrugged. "I can get anything you care to name. Butterbeer, firewhiskey, Romulan ale, even a Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blaster."

A.K. made a face. "I don't care for that Gargle-Blaster," he said. "Too dry."

Monroe nodded. "And, technically, it's illegal to make it on Earth, though since it's fictional in this universe that issue is moot."

A.K. rubbed his chin, considering other options. "Maybe some of that Romulan ale," he said at last. "I've heard it can kick some ass."

A curved, blue bottle of liquid and two good-sized tumblers appeared in Monroe's hands. He held out the tumblers in front of him and left them floating in mid-air, then opened the bottle and poured each one nearly full of the deep blue liquid. One tumbler floated over to A.K., who took it and sniffed the contents of the glass. There was no obvious aroma. Lifting the glass, A.K. said, "Bottoms up," and drained his tumbler.

"Cheers," Monroe said, sipping his. He watched as A.K. sat stock-still for several moments, letting the ale settle. His eyes closed, and as he gustily exhaled a small amount of steam seemed to come out of his mouth. "Are you okay?" Monroe asked.

"I'm fine," A.K. said, though he was shaking his head slowly, apparently trying to clear it. "That is some major, fucked-up shit," he announced. He held out his empty tumbler. "Hit me again."

Monroe smiled. The glass left A.K.'s hand and floated over to his host, who refilled it (though not _quite_ as full as before) and sent it back. A.K. snatched it from the air as soon as it was in reach, but instead of draining the glass this time he took a healthy sip, then looked at Monroe once again. A bit blearily, Monroe noted.

"So what the fuck's goin' on with all this shit?" A.K. asked, waving his glass around to indicate Monroe, the house, and why he was here.

"I want to help you. I know about your situation," Monroe said, leaning forward to speak to A.K., who was beginning to regret that first glass of ale. "Your vow to eliminate Lord Voldemort, in whatever form he may be in, wherever he may be. Knowing how to move between dimensions complicated that vow."

"No shit," A.K. muttered. "I been doin' this for I dunno how freakin' long now." He scowled at Monroe. "What's your beef with Voldemort, anyway? You're no Harry Potter."

"No, I'm not," Monroe agreed. "But I read Harry Potter when I was a kid, and I really enjoyed the books, so when I began my own travels between dimensions one of the things I did was visit a Harry Potter universe. What do you think I found?"

A.K. shrugged. "A Harry Potter, I s'pose," he guessed. He hadn't quite figured out what Monroe had meant by "reading Harry Potter."

"Well, something like that," Monroe answered, his expression void of emotion. "But he was dead, and the Ministry was completely corrupted from within by Death Eaters, and most of the good guys were dead or in hiding."

"So you wen' an' fragged Vold'mort?" A.K. asked. His words were beginning to slur, Monroe noted.

"No," Monroe said. "I helped Ron and Hermione do it."

A.K. gave him a disbelieving look. "You're fucking kiddin', right?"

"No, really," Monroe insisted. "They didn't know I was helping them. I stayed in the background, out of sight. They never even knew I existed."

But A.K. was shaking his head. "No, no — wait a minit — that's not fucking right! You're not following the prophecy! One of us has gotta kill the other — that's the rule!"

"I guess I never heard about that rule," Monroe said, matter-of-factly, "because I've watched everyone from Ron to Hermione to Neville to Luna kill Voldemort, in one universe or another, after Harry was killed. I suppose that's why you and I never ran across each other until now, because your vow wouldn't bring you a universe where Harry Potter was already dead, while those were the only universes I was interested in."

"Have _you_ ever killed Voldemort?" A.K. wanted to know. "You, personally?"

"Yes," Monroe nodded.

"How many?"

"Once."

"_Once_?" A.K. laughed. "So wait a minnit, wait a minnit… what the fuck is all this about you helpin' me somehow? I'm doing what I want to do — kill Voldemorts! I've killed my share of Harry Potters as well, 'specially the fucked-up ones, the Dark ones and other worthless pieces of shit. Ever wonder why we never met in one of _them_ universes, huh?"

"Lucky, I suppose — for _you_, that is," Monroe grunted. A.K. snorted in contempt. This Monroe asshole was beginning to grate on him.

"So what's yer plan, buddy boy?" A.K. sneered. "What are you going t'do to help me out of my 'predicament,' huh?"

Monroe looked annoyed by A.K.'s attitude. "I'm beginning to think I made a mistake, wanting to help you," he said. "Obviously, you want to keep traveling from dimension to dimension, killing Voldemorts and incidentally any Harry Potters that don't meet with your approval."

"That's about the size of it, bucko," A.K. snapped. The cigarette in the ashtray had burned out; he pulled out his pack and drew a cigarette from it with his lips, then snapped his fingers. A flame appeared at the tip of his thumb and he lit the smoke, then blew out his thumb. "Motherfucker, that hurt," he muttered, under his breath, rubbing the tip of his thumb between two fingers.

"So what would you suggest I do to help you?" Monroe asked.

"Really?" A.K. thought for a moment. "Fucking off would be a good start. I don't _need_ your help, I don't _want_ it. You want Voldemort dead? — you just leave it to _me_!" He stood up, pulling out his wand, ready to leave this universe.

"You and the other forty-one A.K.'s roaming the multiverse?" Monroe suggested.

A.K. froze for a moment. "What're you talking about?"

"You don't need to try and bluff me," Monroe pointed out. "I know there are forty-two versions of you."

"How the fuck would you know _that_?" A.K. demanded.

"That's what you told Deuce," Monroe reminded him.

"Who the fuck is Deuce?" A.K. said, confused. "I don' know any fuckin' Deuce!"

Monroe considered whether this A.K. was telling the truth. Not every version of A.K. had to have met his understudy, or even named him the same thing as the A.K. whose stories he'd read about. "Well, maybe you never met Deuce," he admitted, "but you should know about the locker room."

A.K. was shaking his head. "You don't know what you're talking —"

Monroe stood as well. "Let's go see, why don't we?" Before A.K. could protest they both vanished in flashes of white light.

_The Locker Room Dimension_

The two men appeared inside a room that looked, for all intents and purposes, like a real locker room. There were two rows of full-size lockers, with two sets of benches running side by side next to them. One side was marked off in odd numbers: #1, #3, #5, and so on, while the other started with #2, #4, #6, ending at the far end with #42.

"Holy fucking Satan on a shit-stick," A.K. muttered, seeing where they were. "Nobody but me an' the other A.K.'s should be able to reach this place."

"Not really that big a deal," Monroe said, airily. "I've been to quite a few universes, some even harder to reach than this one. Interesting that you encoded your specific DNA structures into the fine constants of this universe, keying it to your specific quantum signatures. It took me a few microseconds to align my DNA to be a match to yours."

A.K. frowned at him. "You mean you made yourself into another Harry Potter?"

"Something like that," Monroe said. "At least, I'm close enough that this universe won't go up in a huge CP-violation explosion. I do like how the place is laid out."

"How so?" A.K. wondered, in spite of being frantic about their security protocols being defeated.

Monroe gestured to the room around them. "Well, top-level access to the main entry point," he said. He pointed to the various lockers. "A basic storage spot for each of you." He walked over to locker #37, the one A.K. had appeared in front of, and opened it, looking inside. There was a large open area on the other side of the door — more magical or dimensional space manipulation was going on. "You appear to have lots of room in your lockers." He leaned back just as A.K. hit the locker door, slamming it shut.

Monroe walked to the end of the row, pointing to the rooms adjacent. "Showers, weight rooms, offensive and defensive magical training areas — you've got a lot of neat shit here, A.K. I even see a locker room for trainees and understudies, like Deuce." He smiled. "And this is just the tip of the iceberg, isn't it?"

"What d'you mean?" A.K. asked, gruffly.

"Well, you've got this dimension arranged like an onion," Monroe explained. "Each layer leading to another one below it. The access points are staggered, too, so you can't move quickly from the outside layers to the inside ones, or vice versa. Very smart, considering that the lowest levels are where the Voldemort holding cells are."

A.K. was looking at him with a new emotion playing across his scarred features — apprehension. "You seem to know as much about this place as I do," he declared. "Why'd you even bother to bring me here in the first place?"

Monroe grinned. "This place is supposed to be impregnable—only accessible by the forty-two Harry Potters who have designated themselves as 'A.K.' for one reason or another. Maybe I figured, you A.K.'s are more likely to believe that one of your own ratted you out, than that an outsider like me was able to break in.

Comprehension dawned in A.K.'s eyes; he paled at the implications. "You motherfucker," he rasped in fury. "You set me up!" His wand was suddenly pointed at Monroe, faster than the eye could follow. "_Avada Kedavra_!"

The green bolt shot across the room, impacting on Monroe's chest and vanishing. Instead of Monroe falling over dead, however, he simply looked up at A.K., and smiled.

"Oh, immune to that, eh?" A.K. said, only mildly surprised. "Let's see what you think of this! _Consummus Deletus_! Or this! _Abolesco Funditus_!" But none of the various powerful death or destruction curses had any effect on Monroe either. Finally he stopped, his breath coming in gasps from the exertion of spellcasting, and glared at Monroe. "What the fuck does it take to kill you, dammit?"

"More than you've got, I expect," Monroe told him, though his tone was mild. "Are you ready to listen yet?"  
"Listen to _what_?" A.K. barked. "You _got_ me — I'm fucked. The other A.K.'s are gonna think I helped you break in here. That means I'm a traitor — and _none_ of us takes very kindly to being betrayed, as you probably already know!"

"I know," Monroe nodded. "But I do have an alternative solution."

"What's that?" A.K. snorted. "_You_ kill me instead of the other A.K.'s?"

"No," Monroe said, shaking his head. "You give up being A.K. and become someone else in a Harry Potter world, either pre- or post-Voldemort."

"Don't you get it?" A.K. looked disgusted. "I can't stop bein' _me_! As long as I know the magic to get from one dimension to the next, my vow forces me to find Voldemort and scrag his ass, one way or another!"

"I can counter the vow," Monroe told him. "I can make it so you have a choice again."

A.K. looked at him in disbelief. "It's a blood oath, dude," he said, wearily, suddenly tired of arguing about this. "It's a _part_ of me. You won't be able to get it out of me as long as I'm _me_!"

"That's a good point," Monroe said. He pointed a finger at A.K., who felt himself seem to twist and bend, though he was standing without moving. When the sensation stopped after what may have been several seconds, or several hours, nothing seemed different about himself…except, he was perhaps an inch or two…taller.

"What did you do?" he asked Monroe, who didn't reply. A.K. conjured a mirror to look at himself. "Oh, fuck!" he said, dropping the mirror in horror at what — _who_ — he saw in the reflection. "I'm fucking Ron Weasley!" He looked up at Monroe, enraged. "Why the fuck did you turn me into Ron W—" his words were cut off as he suddenly disappeared with a _pop_.

"That's why," Monroe said, softly, and disappeared with a similar _pop_.

_World #1423, The Burrow_

A.K. reappeared just outside the gate at the Burrow. "—Weasley?" he finished, then looked around, momentarily confused. "Oh, fuck," he said, as Monroe suddenly appeared beside him.

"Did you figure it out?" Monroe asked him, wondering if this A.K. would be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

A.K. shook his (now) red head wearily. "The best I can figure, dude, is you hate my fucking guts."  
Monroe chuckled. "Well, no, though you did manage to piss me off some, earlier. Actually, this is my idea of saving your life."

"Oh, yeah?" A.K. seemed pretty skeptical. "Do you mind if I hear your theory on how this is going to work?"

"It's pretty simple, really," Monroe began. "This world is pretty much Harry Potter Standard, but with one exception."

"And that is —" A.K. began, but was interrupted by the sound of a loud _bang _comingfrom an open window, followed a few seconds later by a muffled _thump_. "What the fuck was that?" A.K. demanded.

"Your cue," Monroe said, and they both vanished. They appeared moments later inside the Burrow, in Fred and George's room. Cardboard boxes were stacked everywhere, making the room look like a small warehouse. What really stuck out about the room, however, was the dead Ron Weasley laying on the floor.

"Oh, Satan on a stick," A.K. muttered, looking down at the dead Weasley, who had an expression of utter surprise on his face, along with a purple black eye. "What the fuck happened to him?"

"Fred and George, sort of," Monroe shrugged. "That funny little trick telescope they were working on had a nasty bug in it." He picked up the toy telescope. "The combination of jinxes they put on this to create the black eye that won't respond to normal cures has a side effect that builds up over time, until after several weeks it becomes lethal — the bruising effect reaches deeper and deeper into the head of the victim the longer the toy is allowed to lie dormant. When Ron triggered it, just now, he suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage."

At that moment they heard Mrs. Weasley's voice call up from the kitchen. "Ron! Are you alright? I heard a bang and a thump up there a bit ago!"

"Tell her you're okay," Monroe whispered.

"I'm — I'm alright, Mum," A.K. called out, in Ron's voice. "Just found one of Fred and George's little jokes up here."

"Ahh! Those two!" they heard Mrs. Weasley say. "Who'd have thought those jokes of theirs would've taken off like they did!" She went back to whatever she'd been doing.

"Now what do we do about this?" A.K. whispered, looking at Ron's dead body.

Monroe gestured and Ron's body disappeared. "About what, Ron?" he asked, blandly. A.K. stared at him for several seconds, in shock, then shook his head disgustedly.

"Ah, fuck," he said. "I was afraid you were going to say that!"

"Well, look on the bright side," Monroe said, scooping Ron's wand off the floor and handing it to A.K. "Do you feel that vow pulling at you anymore?"

A.K. considered for a moment. "I guess not," he said, finally. "It does feel kind of nice, not having that damn urge inside me all the time." He looked at Monroe. "How'd you get rid of it?"

"Well, I kind of let your locker room dimension handle it," Monroe admitted. "When I turned you into Ron Weasley, the LR dimension detected you as someone who shouldn't be there, so it figure out what world you belonged to and sent you back to the closest point in the dimension where you'd last been — in this case where the real Ron Weasley was, at the Burrow, just before he looked through that toy telescope and it killed him." He reached down, taking the telescope off the floor and holding it as it glowed blue for a moment, then placed it back in one of the boxes. "Well, that fixes that — it won't kill anyone the next time someone activates it."

"But what about the Vow?" A.K. persisted.

"Well, since you A.K.'s are a vindictive lot, the LR dimension tends to void and nullify all spells and enchantments on a body it's sending back to its home dimension. That includes the blood oath you swore, as Harry Potter, to rid the universe of Voldemort in all forms, wherever he might be."

"Hmm," A.K. said. He looked at Monroe. "But you know," he said matter of factly, "I still kinda want to kill me some Voldemorts."

Monroe laughed softly. "Probably. But I'd bet that mostly because you've been doing it for a long time; it's hard to break an established habit. The thing is, it's no longer a compulsion fueled by a blood oath."

"Huh," A.K. nodded. "I get it! Well, thanks, I guess, for getting rid of it," he told Monroe. "Though I'm still pretty pissed at you for this Ron Weasley thing."

"Well, in my defense," Monroe pointed out, "I just made you a physical copy of the guy — I didn't change any of your memories or anything, so you can still go dimension hopping after you help kill this universe's Voldemort — or do it yourself, for that matter. I guess that depends on how much stock you put in that prophecy."

A.K. rubbed the side of his face absently, then got a look of surprise. "No scars!" he said. He rubbed his fingers, finding skin grease, and grimaced. "But, acne." He looked up at Monroe. "I'm too old to go through this shit again."

"It could have been worse," Monroe pointed out. "I could have been in the next universe over when you appeared in my house. In that universe, it was Ginny Weasley who finds the telescope, not Ron."

A.K. shuddered. "Point taken," he said. "So, is there any way for me to get my original body back again?"

Monroe made an expansive gesture. "Well, I'm nothing if not fair—tell you what: I'll leave a pill for you to take that will restore your body back to the A.K. you were before. All you have to do is find a way to get to that pill."

"And where's the pill?" A.K. asked eagerly.

"It's in your locker, in the LR dimension," Monroe said, with a wink. "Good luck getting back there." And he disappeared, not bothering to add that, the next time he died, his personal automatic body generation dimension would restore him to his original body — probably.

**Author's Note: I read "Dimension Hopping for Beginners," by nonjon, and decided that a meeting between A.K. and James Monroe would make for an interesting encounter. Since there are forty-two A.K.'s, according to nonjon, there should be - well, at least a few more chapters to this story. Suggestions welcome!**


	2. World 1375, AK 14

**Ex Machina IV: Monroe Vs. A.K.**

Chapter Two  
World #1375 / A.K. #14

"**The One Who's Really Pissed Off"**

_Updated 31 May 2010_

_World #1432, Little Whinging_

James Monroe returned to his home in Little Whinging, situated a few streets over from number four, Privet Drive; in the same spot where he'd once kept a house while observing and helping a Harry Potter in a universe a long time ago. This house was built on approximately the same plan as the Dursley home (as was just about every house in this neighborhood — they tended to look like rows of identical homes) but with a few physical as well as magical differences. The interior of some rooms were adjustable via wizard space, and Monroe had moved the library from the below-ground level, built from a wine cellar, to the ground floor, installed in the living room, where he tended to spend most of his time when not traveling between dimensions.

His work in this world was done — the A.K. who had come here to kill Voldemort was instead taking over the role of Ron Weasley, who had met with an unfortunate accident at the hands of his brothers' trick telescope. The urge to kill Voldemorts in any and all forms was now missing from this A.K., removed as he was teleported to this world from the Locker Room dimension, the place that only the forty-two extant A.K.'s (and James Monroe) could access, when Monroe had altered his physiology to become Ron Weasley. That A.K. would stay here now, helping the Harry Potter of this world dispatch Voldemort, or he might even do it himself — after all, Monroe had not altered his mind, only his body. That choice, of course, was up to him.

It was time to leave. Monroe walked out onto the porch step of his home, giving the mental command that began its transformation to traveling mode. The house seemed to crumple in on itself, imploding silently inward, until it was no larger than a one-inch cube sitting next to the step. Monroe reached down and picked it up, placing it into his pocket, then taking another small cube from another pocket and placing it next to the step. With the thought _Finite_, he ended the spell he had placed on the cube. It began to expand, and within a half-minute it had returned to its original size — the house that had originally sat here before Monroe replaced it with his own, including the inhabitants, who never knew that they had spent the past few hours inside his pocket.

Smiling and thinking of his next adventure, Monroe vanished from this world.

=ooo=

_World #1375, London_

Monroe appeared on Charing Cross Road, deciding to take a little time off before his next run-in with A.K. He would have a few drinks at the Leaky Cauldron, have a look around this world, and decide where and when he would meet the A.K. that "fate" (and his abilities to manipulate space and time) would bring to him.

Before going inside the Leaky Cauldron, Monroe checked his chronometer, which automatically adjusted itself to the date and time of whatever dimension it was in, and found it was 7:32pm on August 15, 1996. A couple of weeks before Year Six was scheduled to start. Monroe smiled and entered the pub's grimy little entrance, situated _very_ inconspicuously between a book shop on one side and a record store on the other.

Inside were the usual suspects, including Tom the barman, who was bald and toothless, as in most Harry Potter universes. Monroe recognized Doris Crockford and Daedalus Diggle, who were perennial visitors to this pub. Finding a table away from the entrance, Monroe sat down, keeping all doors in view as was prudent during times like this (as Voldemort was in the open once again here and one never knew who might come barging into the place) and smiled pleasantly at Geneva, Tom's buxom barmaid, as she came over to take his order. "What'll you have, sir?"

"A bottle of Merlin's Best Mead, please," Monroe said, dropping a couple of Galleons on the table in front of him. "And keep them coming, please," he added.

"Yes, sir!" Geneva grinned, hurrying off to fetch the mead. It was a good alternative to firewhiskey, though no alcoholic beverage could affect Monroe unless he allowed it to. He enjoyed the taste of mead more than firewhiskey, however, since the latter tended to be shorter on flavor and longer on alcoholic content. Merlin's Best was one of the brands of spirits made by Alley Distilleries in Diagon Alley; not as good as Madam Rosemerta's oak-matured mead, from her own micro-distillery, but tasty nonetheless.

Monroe sipped his mead and glanced idly around the pub. It was pretty much business as usual, even in these troubled times, with Voldemort loose. There was a game of wizard darts going on across the room, with both players attempting to alter the course of each dart thrown; at another table two older wizards were engaged in a slow game of wizard chess, while at another table a low stakes game of Exploding Snap was in progress, thankfully with the _snap_ part confined to the immediate vicinity of the table. Not much really going on here at the moment, Monroe decided.

Monroe let his perception travel outward, moving first several counties to the west, where the Burrow was located. There he saw Harry, Ron and Hermione, all sitting around in Fred and George's bedroom, as Harry continued to try and convince them that Draco Malfoy had become a Death Eater. He let his perception study Harry closely for anything unusual, but Harry was not an elemental or secretly holding an artifact of immense power, like Thor's hammer, nor did he possess any unusual abilities like enhanced strength or speed. He was not even any more powerful than Harry Potter Standard. An A.K. showing up here would probably find this world a doss, but Monroe thought Harry himself should have no trouble defeating this world's Voldemort, given that events unfolded pretty much like they normally did. So, when A.K. showed up as Monroe planned, he would invite him to give up his vow and decide for himself whether he wanted to remain in the Voldemort-killing business.

Geneva had just brought another bottle of mead, smiling pleasantly at Monroe as she did so, when he noticed a dark-cloaked man enter the pub, his wide-brimmed hat pulled down to hide his features. "I don't think I've seen you about before," Geneva said, after she set down his bottle. She had a mild Scots accent which, though sounding both quaint and sensual, in a way, made him think of Professor McGonagall. Scots accents always made him think of her, in women, or Scotty from Star Trek in men. Neither of those individuals were particularly sensual to Monroe.

"It's my first time here, dear," Monroe answered her, pleasantly, as he kept one eye on the man who'd just entered. He had gone to the bar and was talking in low tones with Tom. Something familiar about the man, but Monroe kept his attention on Geneva. "I'd heard good things about the Leaky Cauldron and thought I'd come have a few and see what the place was about."

"How nice!" Geneva smiled engagingly. "Where are ye from, then?"

"From America, originally," Monroe replied. "But I've been traveling for quite some time, now." At that moment Tom called her name.

She gave him a look, then turned back to Monroe. "Looks like the boss has work for me," she said, sounding disappointed. "Talk to you later." She hurried off to see what Tom wanted. Meanwhile, the man who'd been talking to Tom at the bar turned and walked toward Monroe's table, and he immediately recognized the man's face, now that it was coming toward him: Mundungus Fletcher.

_That_ was interesting. What would Mundungus Fletcher want with James Monroe, a man he'd never met before in this world? Curious to see what he wanted, Monroe let the man approach.

"Evening," Fletcher said as he neared the table where Monroe sat.

"Evening," Monroe replied. "How are you, Mundungus?"

The hat brim went up a notch as Fletcher stared at him in surprise. "Yeh know me, then?" he asked, in a quiet tone.

"Sure," Monroe replied, equally quietly. "Mundungus Fletcher, member of the Order of the Phoenix, confidence man, thief, and opportunist par excellent." He pointed to the chair across from him. "Would you like to sit down?"

"Yeah." Fletcher pulled the chair away from the table and dropped into it, reaching into his pocket as he did so. Noticing Monroe watching him, he made a show of pulling out what he was reaching for slowly. "D'ye mind if I smoke?" he asked, waving a pipe and a pouch of tobacco in front of Monroe.

"I do, actually, but this is a public house," Monroe said, with a shrug. "So I can't stop you, can I?"

"I guess not," Fletcher grinned, tamping tobacco in his pipe and touching the tip of his wand to it. Almost immediately the air around him began to turn gray with smoke.

"Do we have something to discuss?" Monroe asked, a bit impatiently.

"Well, perchance we do," Fletcher said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He jerked his head back toward the bar. "Tom there says yer new here — never been in the Cauldron before. Izzat right?"

"It's true enough," Monroe agreed. "I've never been in this bar before."

"And where'd yeh come from?" Fletcher asked, as his pipe continued to billow out noxious flumes of gray smoke, all but obscuring him from normal view.

"Any particular reason why that would be important to you?" Monroe asked, coldly.

"Jes' trying to make sure you're the man I want to talk to," Fletcher shrugged. "I'm startin' to think yeh are, from all indications."

"And if I am?" Monroe inquired.

"Well," Fletcher grunted, "then it's time for you to — DIE!" Without warning the hand holding his pipe shot forward, throwing it into Monroe's face. His head snapped back as the pipe hit his forehead. At the same moment Fletcher leaped to his feet; his arms spread as wands slid forward from forearm holsters into each hand and he made several slashing gestures toward Monroe. With each slash a cut appeared on Monroe's body — his hands fell away from his arms, cuts appeared across his face, his throat and his chest; blood spurted from all wounds, and Monroe slumped forward over the table, his life's blood spurting from him as through a sieve.

Fletcher took a step back, both wands still pointed at the dismembered body, in case some magic was in place to automatically heal the wounds. But after a few moments he lowered the wands, convinced that the trauma was too great to recover from, even for Monroe. "That'll show you, you bastard," he muttered, looking at the dead man with contempt. "_Nobody_ fucks with A.K. — none of us!"

"Bloody hell!" a voice behind Fletcher (really A.K., of course) said, in a shocked tone. "You sure got him good, Dung!"

"Yeah, he deserved it," A.K. said, turning to see who'd called him "Dung." Ron Weasley was standing behind him, looking shocked by what he'd just witnessed. "What the fuck are you doing here, Weasley?"

Ron looked affronted at being cursed at. "I could ask you the same question! Who the hell is this guy and why'd you just cut 'im to pieces, Dung?"

"Not your concern," A.K. shook his head dismissively. "I had a score to settle with this one — he kidnapped a friend of mine and cursed him. Now my friend's never gonna be the same again."

Ron shook his head, crossing his arms in front of himself. "That sounds like bullshite to me, Dung. Maybe you should come along and explain this to Dumbledore."

A.K. snorted. "Not bloody likely, boy. Dumbledore's got nothing to do with this. Now run along, before I give you a bit of what I gave him!"

Ron smirked. "That's not going to work again, A.K.," he said. A.K. immediately swung both wands, still in his hands, at Weasley, but as his arms came forward the wands disappeared.

"Oh, fuck me," A.K. snarled, realizing his weapons were gone.

"No, thanks," Monroe said. "Let's talk. But not here." Both of them vanished in twin flashes of white light.

=ooo=

_World #1375, South Africa, the Veldt_

The two men appeared a moment later on open grassland that seemed to stretch to the horizon in every direction. There were a few trees visible in the distance, in some directions, but it was impossible to tell how far away they were. A.K. still looked like Fletcher, but with a wave of Monroe's hand the Polyjuice Potion wore off and A.K. crumpled to the ground as he changed back to his original form.

Monroe regarded him impassively as A.K. lay panting on the ground. The change was usually unpleasant but A.K. was used to far more pain than the twisting sensations of being Polyjuiced, or coming out of it for that matter. Finally he looked up at Monroe. "How the fuck did you figure out who I was?"

"Well, I got a teensy bit suspicious when you asked me if you could smoke," Monroe pointed out. "I doubt that the real Mundungus Fletcher would have cared whether some stranger in a pub minded if he smoked or not."

A.K. shook his head angrily. "That's not enough to go on!"

"True enough," Monroe agreed. "That's why I checked you out with an Undetectable Detection Charm, and found out that you were Polyjuiced. From there it was a simple matter to examine your quantum signature and determine that you were in fact an A.K." Monroe looked at him curiously. "So what's your beef with me?"

"As if you didn't know!" A.K. snarled. "You kidnapped one of us! You infiltrated our private dimension! You removed all the enchantments on one of us without his permission! And you tried to frame him for voluntarily giving you information that you stole from him! Any _one_ of those things is enough to get you killed!"

"Yeah, my bad," Monroe admitted. "I guess all you A.K.'s like the idea that you're locked into a Vow to destroy Voldemort in any and all forms, no matter what, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."

"Who says we _want_ to?" A.K. growled. "I _like_ killing Voldemorts! It's not up to you to stop me!"

"Actually, it is," Monroe pointed out. "Nobody else seems to want to."

"And why do _you_ care, exactly?" A.K. asked. "From what I gathered from the A.K. you kidnapped, you were in the Voldemort killing business too, for a while."

"I was," Monroe nodded. "But I never made a vow that locked me into some kind of infinite loop of killing Voldemort after Voldemort, forever. What I did for A.K. #37 was to remove the Vow from his system, to give him back the choice to do what he wanted, when he wanted."

"Yeah, see how _that_ worked out," A.K. sneered. "You forced him to become Ron Weasley after removing the Vow from him! That's hardly a case of 'doing what you want, when you want,' is it?"

"He's still free to help the Harry Potter in that world eliminate Voldemort, or do it on his own," Monroe said.

"Fortunately, that's moot now," A.K. said, smugly.

"Oh?" Monroe began to suspect A.K. had unraveled his plans. "What did you do?"

"I went back in time in World #1432, back to when Voldemort was restored to life, at the end of Harry's fourth year," A.K. smirked. "I killed him as he was climbing out of the cauldron, and I killed all the Death Eaters who were present at his revival. Then I made Harry promise to tell everyone it had been him that killed Voldemort and his men, and he took them back to the graveyard in Little Hangleton to prove it."

"Oh, I see," Monroe said, softly. "So Ron Weasley was never killed on that world, and A.K. #37 didn't have to take his place."

"Right," said A.K. brightly. "He vanished out of existence when the timeline changed, but his Horcrux dimension fashioned him another body and returned it to our private locker room, just as he'd been before you began fucking around with him. So his Vow is back in place and you accomplished _nothing_!"

"Well, that makes me a bit sad," Monroe said. He pointed a finger at A.K., who was immediately vaporized. "And a teensy bit angry, too."

A parchment note appeared in the air in front of Monroe. He snatched it as it began to waft downward and read it.

_Monroe,  
_

_As I'd planned, when you vaporized me it allowed my regeneration magic in my Horcrux dimension to recreate me, giving me the opportunity to escape. You failed to destroy me, fucker.  
__However, I shall not fail to defeat you, when we meet again. So beware, the wrath of A.K. is upon you!_

_Sincerely Gloating,  
__A.K._

Monroe let the parchment go, watching as it burst suddenly into flame and vanished. "Oh yes, A.K, you surely outsmarted me," he said softly. "I never would have remembered that all you A.K.'s each have your own private Horcrux dimension that rebuilds each of you a new body whenever your current one is destroyed.

"And, knowing there is no way to track your bodies for that very reason, because they can be destroyed at a moment's notice, I _never_ would have thought to place a mental suggestion in your brain before you were vaporized, causing you to unconsciously send out a unique magical signal, traceable across time, space and dimensions. So I know _exactly_ where you are, no matter where or when you go in the multiverse. Just as I've done with A.K. #37."

Monroe stood still for a moment, considering. "Of course," he continued, "I'm still pissed that you tried to kill me — there's a dead body back in the Leaky Cauldron that the Ministry is probably trying to figure out right now who he was. Of course, having no record of me in this world, they'll have no idea who I am, and they'll just chalk me up as another victim of Voldemort, who's a convenient scapegoat for unsolved murders in the Wizarding world. Oh well," he shrugged. "I guess there's only one thing to do.

"Go kill this world's Voldemort, before A.K. tries to. _And_ let him know who did it." Smiling, Monroe vanished from the veldt.

=ooo=

_World #1375, Devon, Malfoy Manor_

A.K. reappeared in the world he'd just been vaporized out of, alert and ready for anything — except where he found himself. He had appeared in front of a large, ornate iron gate, one he recognized from innumerable times of knocking it down or melting it. _What the fuck_, he thought, not understanding. _Harry can't be _here_, can he_? _Not now_! The first time Harry visited Malfoy Manor in most universes was during his Horcrux quest with Hermione and Ron, when they were captured by Snatchers and brought to where Fenrir Greyback, the leader of the group that had captured them, believed he would find Lord Voldemort.

The gate, sensing someone before it, bent and twisted itself into the semblance of a visage and intoned, in a graveyard voice, "State your business."

A.K. grinned savagely. "I'm here to kill Lord Voldemort."

"He's not here at the moment," the gate replied. "May I take a message."

"No," A.K. replied, taking out his wand. "I'll wait for him." He cast a very _small_ Fiendfyre spell at the gate — one that would devour the metal and perhaps some of the stone of the wall before it dissipated and died out. The gate screamed satisfyingly as the cursed fire ran up and down its steel grating, burning the metal to ash.

Finally, only the hinges hung on the stone walls, and A.K. marched up the walk to the front door. The grounds were eerily silent — not even the albino pheasants were crying out as he strode up the path. At the main entrance of the manor, he waved his wand, causing the front doors to fly open, expecting some kind of offensive response. There was nothing. "It's quiet," he muttered. Then because it amused him, he added, "_Too_ quiet."

The stench of blood and spilled intestines hit him immediately. Many men would have vomited, but A.K. had seen horrors that made this seem like a Sunday school picnic. He recognized many of the faces that stared lifelessly up at him—of the bodies that still had faces, that is: there was Avery, the Carrows, the big blond, Thorfinn Rowle, Dolohov — many other minor Death Eaters, who were apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Satan on a shit-stick," A.K. muttered. "What the fuck happened here?" Did Voldemort get a hang-nail and kill everyone in a fit of rage? It seemed like he was unbalanced enough to do something crazy like this. He made his way to the sitting room, the place he thought it most likely to find Voldemort — or at least, evidence that he'd been there.

The sitting room was even worse than the hall. In here it was the family hour, however — he saw the remains of Bellatrix Lestrange, the Sword of Gryffindor rammed down her throat, as if she'd been forced to swallow it and hadn't quite gotten the job done. Lucius Malfoy (A.K. thought it was him) was rolled into a corner, in a very unpleasant-looking position: he'd been bent over backwards and his head forced up his own anus — it looked like someone had extended the Jelly-Legs Jinx to his entire body; as far as A.K. could tell, he'd suffocated to death.

Near the center of the room were two nearly identical mounds of ash that more or less resembled a human form burned in place. A.K. would have had to guess at the identity of these individuals if it hadn't been for a piece of a hawthorn wand lying near one of the mounds. That would be Draco, A.K. decided, and the other one was likely to be his mother, Narcissa.

There was one other body in the room, and A.K. approached it warily — wondering if all this was just to trick him. But no, the person grinning at him from the large, ornate chair set up in front of the fireplace could only be Voldemort. But whatever had happened here, the person who'd killed him had done so to get A.K.'s notice. Voldemort was propped up in the chair with one hand on the armrest, the other seeming to gesture to five objects at his feet. As A.K. looked at them he saw Riddle's diary, a gold ring set with a black stone, a gold locket, a two-handled cup, and a tarnished silver diadem. Around behind the chair, he saw, was the headless remains of Voldemort's large green snake, Nagini—but not _all_ of it. A large portion of its tail was missing, though it was obvious where that portion was.

It had been shredded into green strips and woven into a crude, frizzy wig, which was placed atop Voldemort's bald pate. His robes had been transformed into a purple suit, with pinstripes. The corners of the Dark Lord's lipless mouth were dragged back along his cheeks, baring his teeth, and the area around his lips were smeared with Nagini's (or someone's) red blood, so that the once-Lord Voldemort now looked like the Clown Prince of Death. A.K. shook his head — whoever had done this had either _really_ set out to humiliate the Dark Lord, or —

In the mirror over the fireplace words had been written, and reading them, A.K.'s blood boiled with anger. The message said,

_Neener neener!  
__Looks like the joke's  
__on you, A.K.!  
_— _Monroe_

"Motherfucker," A.K. breathed, in fury. "I'll get you, if it's the last thing I do! _Nobody_ kills Voldemorts but us A.K.'s!"


	3. DemiGods Showdown

**Ex Machina IV: Monroe Vs. A.K.**

Chapter Three  
World #X / A.K. #7

"**Demi-Gods Showdown"**

_Updated 4 March 2011_

The moment James Monroe materialized in this world he knew something was wrong. It felt…dead here, like he was the only living thing standing on the planet. Why would an otherwise normal-appearing Earth give off such a morbid sensation?

Monroe looked around. He was standing in front of two buildings, a record store and a book store on Charing Cross Road, but it was the shabby little shop between them, a shop few eyes could see, that interested him. He had taken to appearing here, in front of the Leaky Cauldron, whenever he came to a new world; it was sort of a tradition with him, now, especially since most of the A.K.'s were acquainted with his existence and mission. He intended to stop each one of the A.K.'s from continuing in their mission to destroy all Voldemorts in existence.

Of course, he understood their motivation — he himself had engaged in some Voldermort-bashing for a period of time, until he realized that, ultimately, it accomplished nothing but self-serving gratification. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but all of the A.K.'s had locked themselves into a magical vow that they themselves were nearly powerless to break free from. It was going to take someone with the kind of power Monroe possessed to free each of them.

If they'd just let him _do_ it, that is.

Monroe stepped into the pub. It looked no different than in any of the other Harry Potter worlds Monroe had visited — except that this Leaky Cauldron was totally, completely empty. Not a soul was present — not Doris Crockford, nor Dedalus Diggle, two regulars here, nor was there any movement at all, anywhere above him in the flats one could rent out. The only presence there, other than Monroe himself, was the person behind the bar — who wasn't Tom the barman, the usual proprietor of the pub.

It was one of the A.K.'s. A particularly rough, grizzled version of Harry, a man with several years of hard living encrusted over his body and soul. He was pretending to be busy, Monroe saw: wiping out a shot glass and whistling tunelessly, a cigar clamped securely between his lips. He blew in the glass and set it down behind the bar, then pretended to notice Monroe for the first time.

"Ah, there you are!" he said, grinning around the cigar in his mouth. "I was beginning to wonder what was keeping you?"

Monroe walked up to the bar. "Nothing was keeping me, I suppose," he said. "I just got here." He looked around at the empty pub. "This is not exactly what I expected to find, however."

"I guess not," A.K. smirked.

"Care to explain?" Monroe prompted.

"Why not?" A.K. replied, carelessly. "It's a showdown."

"A showdown?" Monroe repeated, sounding skeptical. "Between you and me?"

"Oh hell no," A.K. sneered, waving away any such suggestion. "Whatever you are, Monroe, it's a helluva lot more powerful than your average wizard. And you've shown us that you're pretty much more powerful than your average A.K. as well. Right?"

"I tend to agree with you on that," Monroe nodded, with a small smile.

"So I decided to get some help," A.K. went on. He took out his wand. Monroe raised an eyebrow, but A.K. only said, "If you care to follow me, I'll show you what I'm talking about."

Monroe made a go-ahead gesture, and both he and A.K. disappeared from the pub, reappearing a moment later in, of all places, the play park in Little Whinging.

Monroe looked around, trying to fathom A.K.'s purpose in bringing him here. Little Whinging, and indeed all of Surrey, was just as empty as London had been. There was not a person anywhere within Monroe's rather vast perceptual range. "By the way," he asked, as A.K. turned to face him. "What did you do with everybody?"

"It took me a while to find this world," A.K. replied. "I don't know what happened to everybody — but it's pretty much exactly like the canonical Harry Potter world, so it's perfect for our showdown. Everything here is just as it was on my home world."

"Which A.K. are you?" Monroe asked, curious.

A.K. stared at him a moment, puffing on his cigar. Finaally, he answered, "I use locker number seven back in the Locker Room Dimension, so I guess you can call me A.K. #7."

"I'm getting closer to meeting A.K. #1, then," Monroe smiled.

"I wouldn't worry about that," A.K. said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'm the last A.K. you're ever going to see."

Monroe smiled. "So what's the plan, Stan?"

"The _plan_," A.K. replied, huffy about being mocked, "is that I'm going to pit you against some pretty powerful versions of Harry Potter from other universes. If you beat them all, then I suppose you'll be able to make me do whatever you want."

"And if they beat me?" Monroe asked.

"Then you'll be dead," A.K. smiled viciously.

"That's a fairly tall order," Monroe suggested. "You don't know what it's going to take to kill me."

"I have some ideas," A.K. allowed. "I know about Horcrux dimensions, for example. But I doubt you use anything like that."

"True," Monroe agreed. "A very primitive method of achieving immortality."

A.K. snorted contemptuously. "Mr. High-and-Mighty, aren't we?" he sneered. "It's not like you can't be killed, you know. Remember what A.K. #14 did to you not that long ago — chopped you up into pieces in the Leaky Cauldron."

Monroe made a gesture of indifference. "I saw that coming a mile away — it was obvious that 'Dung' was really A.K. I had abandoned that body for him to cut up well before he drew his wands on me."

"Yeah, sure," A.K. agreed, sarcastically. "Well, we're not going to play by those rules this time."

"Oh?" Monroe looked around, then sat down on the one unbroken swing. "What rules do you want to play by this time, then?"

"No multiple incarnations," A.K. stated. "When you die, you lose — game over, in other words."

"The same goes for your guys, then?" Monroe surmised. A.K. nodded. "Any other rules?" Monroe wanted to know.

"Beyond that, anything goes," A.K. said. "Agreed?"

"Agreed," Monroe said. He stood and they shook hands. In mid-shake A.K. suddenly disappeared, leaving Monroe standing alone in the play park.

"Now what?" Monroe asked, looking around. He could still sense no one around him for miles. "Who am I up against?"

"You'll see, shortly," A.K.'s disembodied voice spoke, seemingly all around him. "Your first opponent is Harry Bruce Potter. He'll be dropping in any moment now."

And drop in he did. Monroe suddenly felt, rather than saw, a presence approaching, and looked up, stepping back to avoid being crushed by the large, snarling humanoid, standing perhaps eight feet in height and weighing well over a thousand pounds, that landed where he'd been standing.

"Oh, I get it," as he looked over the growling behemoth who'd landed in front of him. "Harry _Bruce_ Potter, eh?"

"Stupid little man!" Harry-Hulk snarled at him. "Hulk _hate_ stupid man!"

"What else is new?" Monroe asked, rhetorically. "So come on, big boy — take your best shot."

Harry-Hulk roared and swung, and Monroe's body went flying through the air, out of the play park and across the street, to smash into the side of one of the houses lining Magnolia Road.

While Harry-Hulk stomped around in the play park, roaring in victory and anger, A.K. appeared next to the wreckage of the house. He peered inside the hole made by Monroe's body. "Dead yet in there, are you, Monroe?" he called.

"Hardly," Monroe said, appearing at the hole. A.K. looked chagrinned.

"That blow should have busted you up," he objected, heatedly. "What the fuck?"

"Don't look so surprised," Monroe told him. "You said, 'no coming back after you're dead,' right? You never said I couldn't make myself as sturdy as Hulk-boy over there is."

"Guess it's time for round two, then," A.K. said. He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Harry-Hulk looked around, and A.K. shouted, "Come an' get 'im!" while pointing to Monroe.

Roaring in rage, the eight-food behemoth turned and charged toward them, battering down the play park fence as he came. Monroe held his ground, and the two of them slammed together and flew back into the partially-destroyed house, bringing it down on top of them both. A.K. watched and listened as he heard sledgehammer blows being traded along with the sound of shattering glass and metal twisting. There was a sudden loud BOOM and the wreckage suddenly exploded outward as a huge, green figure hurtled into the air.

"Shit," said A.K., watching Harry-Hulk soaring up and away. A moment later the wreckage of the house was pushed aside and Monroe stepped out of the debris, looking none the worse for wear.

"That was fun," Monroe commented, stopping beside A.K as he dusted his hands together. "Who's next?"

"That was just a warm-up," A.K. promised, threateningly. Harry the Hulk was the strongest mortal Harry, but he's small-time compared to your next opponent."

"Do tell," Monroe said, blandly. "Who's coming next, Harry Jesus?"

"Funny," A.K. sneered. "No, smart ass, but you're close. This Harry came across an interesting artifact one day — an old walking cane that turned out to be a lot more than it appeared." He Disapparated as a bolt of lightning struck the ground not far from where Monroe was standing.

Where the bolt hit was standing a tall, dark-haired man in a dark tunic and leggings, draped in a flowing red cape and wearing a winged helmet. He pointed a short-handled war hammer at Monroe and intoned. "You are the enemy of A.K., are you not? His enemies are _my_ enemies!"

"Harry-Thor, I presume?" Monroe said, sounding a bit flippant.

"Don't mock me!" the figure said, angrily. "Yield, or I shall be forced to beat you down like the cur you are!"

"I think all the trappings of Norse mythology has addled your brains a bit, Harry," Monroe told him. "Do you really think you're some kind of _god_?"

"What would _you_ know of being a god?" Thor sneered at him.

"More than you might think," Monroe sneered back.

"Then have at you!" Thor shouted, throwing the hammer at Monroe. The weapon sped directly at Monroe, who watched its approach with seeming indifference until, at the last moment, he disappeared, and the hammer passed harmlessly through the air where he'd been.

Looping back through the air, the hammer returned to Harry-Thor, who looked around wrathfully, trying to find Monroe. "Come out, you coward!" he shouted into the air. "Running away like a little girl, are you?"

"Not really," said a voice behind him. As Harry-Thor turned, he saw Monroe completing a two-handed swing, and with a loud CLANG something connected with the side of Thor's head, sending him flying. "I just needed to find a weapon of my own," Monroe finished, brandishing a bat with the words "Walking Tall" engraved in the side.

Monroe looked around, to see where A.K. might be. "You might want to get your next guy on deck," he called out. "This one should be —" his voice cut off as Thor's hammer suddenly slammed into his chest, sending him flying into the side of another house. The hammer returned to Thor, who pointed it at the house, sending down lighting strikes that set the house ablaze.

"_Now_ let me hear your jibes, mortal!" Thor roared triumphantly, watching the house burn. He looked startled, however, a moment later when the burning rubble shifted and Monroe stepped out of it, looking a bit scorched but otherwise unharmed.

"I'm not some witch in a children's story, Harry," Monroe said, plaintively. "Dropping a house on me isn't going to work."

"Then I'll fight you man-to-man!" Thor cried, fixing his hammer to his belt and landing in front of Monroe. Side by side, Thor towered over Monroe, standing six-and-a-half feet tall to Monroe's five-feet-ten-inches. With burly, bulging muscles, Harry-Thor truly looked like a god.

Monroe, on the other hand, looked rather unimposing. Not thin, but more like an average guy, he watched impassively as Thor raised his fists, boxing style, to challenge him. "Will you fight me," Thor asked, "or do you yield?"

After a moment Monroe put up his hands as well. Thor smiled and began circling Monroe. He threw out a couple of mild jabs, both of which connected with Monroe's head, though Monroe seemed unfazed by the blows.

"I can strike you at will," Harry-Thor grinned at the smaller man. "You do not stand a chance against me."

"I haven't yet begun to fight," Monroe shrugged. As Thor threw out another lazy jab, Monroe ducked it and landed a left jab of his own in Thor's stomach. Thor grunted in surprise. He had _felt_ that, even through the heavy leather tunic he wore!

"You are stronger than you appear, mortal," Thor admitted. "But you cannot be stronger than Thor!"

"I don't have to be stronger than you," Monroe pointed out. "I just have to be _better_ than you."

"Ha!" Thor chuckled at the thought. He swung again at the smaller man, barely missing him, but caught a hard right on his jaw from Monroe. His laughter suddenly cut short, Thor began fighting in earnest.

The two stood toe-to-toe, trading blows that would have killed normal men. The sound of their sledgehammer blows resounded throughout Little Whinging, though there was no one other than A.K. there to witness it. From his viewpoint, it looked like this fight could go on forever, with neither Monroe nor Thor having a clear advantage. How to break the stalemate?

As if this was clear to him as well, Monroe suddenly took a step back, raising his hands for Thor to stop. "We're going to have to find a different way to settle this," he said to the Thunderer. "Otherwise we'll just be standing here pounding on each other forever."

"What do you suggest?" Thor panted.

"How about a drinking contest?" Monroe suggested.

"Ha!" Thor cried. "Now you are talking! I am a champion drinker!"

"Well then, belly up to the bar," Monroe said, and the wreckage around them began to reform itself, turning into a polished wood bar and a shelf behind it filled with various bottles. "I suppose a game of quarters is out of the question?"

"I'll give no quarter," Thor rumbled, "nor ask for any!"

"Er — right," Monroe said, thinking, _same planet, different worlds_. "I guess we'll just drink until one of us can't drink any more. Agreed?"

"Agreed, mortal," Thor folded his arms across his chest, looking smug. "You should realize, however, that I can drink enough to empty the ocean itself, if need be."

"I've heard that rumor," Monroe nodded. He'd walked around behind the bar and had set up a large mug, filling it with various shots from the bottles behind the bar. "Have a try at this."

"What is it?" Thor asked, eyeing the drink interestedly. "It looks…dangerous."

"It's a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster," Monroe told him. "The best drink in the galaxy. I've made this one a triple."

"Have _you_ ever drank one of these?" Thor asked, a bit suspiciously.

"All the time," Monroe said. He reached for the mug.

"Wait!" Thor snatched the mug from the bar before Monroe could reach it. "I'll go first!"

"Fine by me," Monroe shrugged, then said "Hold it!" as Thor started to bring it to his lips. "Forgot the final ingredient." He dropped an olive into the mug. "Okay, drink. But _very carefully_."

"Pfffft," Thor razzed the very idea of _careful drinking_. "_Real_ men don't need to be careful, mortal!" So saying, he tipped back the mug, guzzling the drink down in a few gulps. "Ahhhh….." Thor smiled at Monroe, in apparent triumph.

Then the Gargle Blaster hit his stomach. Thor blinked, and tears came involuntarily to his eyes. "By Odin's l-left nut," he said, his voice suddenly whispery, as if he'd lost his breath. He set the mug down on the bar and clutched at his throat.

"Smooth, isn't it?" Monroe looked pleased with his bartending skills.

"Homina homina homina," Thor babbled, swaying on his feet. He looked at Monroe, trying to say something, but his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell onto his back. The olive popped out of his mouth, shot into the air, and landed in the empty mug on the bar.

Monroe looked over the bar at the unconscious Thunderer. "I guess I'm going to have to cut you off, big guy," he said, sadly.

A.K. Apparated next to the prone body. "What the fuck?" he said once again, looking up at Monroe. "A Gargle Blaster did this? To _Thor_?"

"Well, it was a triple," Monroe pointed out. "Also, I added enough tranquilizer to the drink to knock out a dozen elephants."

"What?" A.K. looked incensed. "You cheated?"

"Hey," Monroe objected. "I never saw a rule that said, no slipping the Thunder God a mickey."

"Goddammit," A.K. muttered, staring at the unconscious Thor. "Well, he's fucking toast now."

"Yep," Monroe agreed. "Bring on your next opponent."

"Fine," snapped A.K. "But you're not going to be able to shrug this one off." He disappeared, and in the distance Monroe saw another figure approaching with a slow, measured gait.

Monroe could see it was another Harry Potter; this one looked rather ordinrary, more like an 18-year old boy than monster or demi-god. Monroe strolled toward him, interested to see what tricks this Harry would have up his sleeve.

They stopped about a dozen feet apart, regarding one another silently. Monroe could see nothing unusual about this Harry — thin, bespectacled as he normally was, the only anomaly Monroe detected was a strange energy that seemed to emanate from Harry's body. Of course it would have something to do with A.K. sending this Harry after him. "Well, I guess this is down to you and me," Monroe said, finally addressing him.

"I guess so," Harry nodded.

"So what's your power?" Monroe asked, folding his arms across his chest and looking a bit bored. "We might as well get this show on the road."

"Just this," Harry said. He held up his right hand. In his palm there was a black, eight-pointed star covered with a thin crescent shape. "Do you know what this is?"

Monroe did. It was a Star Brand, an artifact of tremendous power. A person possessing it could do quite literally anything they could think of. He went on alert, dropping his hands to his sides. "Yeah, I do know what that is."

"Good," Harry said. "I didn't want it to be a surprise when you find yourself —" A ravening beam of all-destroying white force erupted from Harry's palm, enveloping Monroe (and much of the neighborhood behind him) in an annihilating blast of energy. Harry held the beam of force for several seconds — nearby houses were erupting in flame and exploding as the effects of the beam spread outward. "— dead," Harry finished. Finally he shut down the beam and gazed at the destruction before him. An ever-widening cone of fire and scorched earth lay before him. Of Monroe there was no sign.

A.K. appeared beside him, looking at the devastation in wonder. "Did you get him?" A.K. asked.

"Yeah," Harry nodded.

"Are you sure?" A.K. persisted. "He might've Disapparated."

"My beam extended into Apparation Space," Harry said, looking at A.K. "Even if he tried to do a flit, it would have vaporized him there as well."

"Good thing I didn't do that, then," a voice behind them said, and both Harry and A.K. turned to see Monroe standing behind them, unharmed. "But it was pretty close — that beam might've got me if I hadn't converted myself to the same photonic energy."

"How is that even _possible_?" Harry looked skeptical. "You can't exist as just a bunch of photons!"

"Says the kid with the brand on his hand that lets him do anything he can thing of," Monroe shot back. "If you can shoot blasts of all-annihilating energy from your hand, then I can reform myself instantaneously into patterns of that energy and merge with it, and pass through it unharmed."

"Okay, then," Harry said, getting a stubborn look on his face. "Let's see what you think about _this_!" He pointed a finger into the sky, at the sun, then folded his arms across his chest and stared at Monroe. After about a minute of waiting, Monroe began to wonder just what the young Harry was up to.

"Is something supposed to happen?" he asked, bored with the delay.

"Wait for it," Harry said. "You'll see in a couple of minutes."

A.K., who'd been looking around as well, wondering what Harry was up to, suddenly looked shocked. "Oh no you _didn't_…" he breathed, looking at Harry.

Harry raised an eyebrow at his counterpart. "Oh yes I did," he replied in the same tone. "I blew up the sun. It just takes about eight minutes for the light of the supernova to reach us."

"Doesn't that mean we're all going to die?" Monroe asked. "The sun going supernova will vaporize the Earth."

"So?" Harry asked, unconcerned. "That's not _my_ problem — I can survive the whole _galaxy_ going supernova, if need be."

"Well, _I_ can't!" A.K. said. "Actually, I will — my Horcrux dimension will create a new body for me — but that means neither Monroe or me can win this contest!"

"Er — sorry," Harry shrugged. "But you said you wanted Monroe killed, no matter what it took me to do it. This is what it takes." He glanced up. "And now it's too late to argue about it — the supernova's here…"

The sun suddenly darkened for a moment, as if going out, but then burst into a brilliant white light that slammed into the atmosphere, superheating it and half the surface of the earth in a few moments. The superheated gas and water began expanded, sending shockwaves of more than hurricane-force winds around the planet, destroying everything in its path. The heat continued to build, melting chunks of crust that began to shear away from the surface, impelled by the horrific radiation put out by the expanding supernova. Continents sloughed away under the onslaught of heat and light, revealing the hot magma beneath, which freed from the pressure that held it in place began to spout out in great gobs of red-hot lava.

Within a few minutes, the hellish gases and radiation from the sun had vaporized most of the Earth's surface. It was now simply a glowing glob of red-hot magma. However, floating above the surface of the glowing planet was an island of normalcy — a patch of normal ground surrounded by a bubble of atmosphere, a balmy 72 degrees within it. Inside were three men: Harry, A.K. and Monroe.

"That probably didn't work out the way you expected it," Monroe commented.

Harry looked a bit put-out. "Well, who knew you had the same kind of power I do. You must have a Star Brand too, wherever you came from."

"No," Monroe shook his head. "But close enough."

A.K. was looking agitated. "Well, what're you waiting for?" he snapped at Harry. "Finish him!"

Harry looked at him archly. "You've got to be kidding! He's just as indestructible as I am! The only reason you're alive is because Monroe created this environment for _you_ — neither he nor I need it!" He looked at Monroe. "Do you?"

"Right in one," Monroe said, smiling.

"Well, this is unacceptable!" A.K. said, hotly. "You two can't just declare a draw — you've got to keep on fighting until one of you loses!"

"Why don't you just accept that you lost the contest?" Monroe asked, reasonably. "You're out of your league here now, anyway."

"How's that?" A.K. asked, belligerently.

"You couldn't survive if I wasn't keeping this environment around us. It's for _your_ benefit, not Harry's or mine," Monroe pointed out.

"Oh, yeah?" A.K. swelled with indignation. "Wanna bet — winner take all?"

Monroe looked at Harry, who shrugged. "Sure," he agreed. "Get ready."

The environment around A.K. disappeared. His eyes widened with shock as the heat and radiation of the supernova began driving through his body. The Earth's remaining gravity took over, and he began to fall toward the surface, gasping in pain as the rarefied, superheated air burnt his lungs and skin. Suddenly he burst into flames, then fell the remaining distance to the surface, where his body floating, burning, on the flowing magma.

"Shit," Harry said, frowning at A.K.'s fate. "That had to hurt."

"He'll be back, eventually," Monroe said, indifferently. "His Horcrux dimension will reform his body and dump him in the Locker Room dimension. So, what do you say to a drink?" He clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder. "No reason we can't be friends, just because you were working for A.K. for a while, there."

Harry mulled it over for a few moments, then nodded. "Sure. Where did you have in mind?"

Monroe smiled. "I thought we'd check out the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I hear they make a great Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster."


	4. World 1550, AK 2: The Line

**Ex Machina IV: Monroe Vs. A.K.**

Chapter Four  
World #1550 / A.K. #2  
"**The Line"**

_Updated July 23, 2011_

James Monroe arrived on Harry Potter world #1550, appearing in front of number 4 Privet Drive. He usually appeared in this neighborhood, either near his home or Harry's, to assess the situation and determine what he might need to do to stop whichever A.K. would appear to try and destroy Voldemort.

Monroe was growing tired of dealing with the A.K's, especially now that they had launched a vendetta to destroy him for meddling in their affairs. Not a big deal, he smiled to himself — the A.K.s were out of their depth trying to stop him, a Power capable of bending time and space itself to his will. In fact, he had killed his own share of Voldemorts, but had eventually tired of that, realizing that for every Voldemort he slew, another Voldemort in another universe triumphed over Harry. Cosmic balance. The only way to keep things "fair," if that term could even apply to the multiverse, was to stop A.K. from interfering in Harry's life, to allow him to destroy Voldemort on his own, with minimal help. The A.K.s had originally started out that way, Monroe knew, but they had corrupted themselves in their zeal to eliminate the Dark Lord.

Monroe checked his watch, which automatically adjusted itself to the current local time whenever he entered a new universe: July 27, 1997, at about 7:30 p.m. That was pretty late in the game, he knew; he usually arrived sometime in the first 5 years of Harry's student life at Hogwarts. Today was the day Harry was to leave the Dursley's house, to hide him from Voldemort before the Dark Lord could attack the house when Harry's protection dissolved on July 31, his 17th birthday. Rendering himself invisible and undetectable by magic, Monroe awaited the arrival of the Order of the Phoenix members and the launch of the "seven Harrys" plan, a plan that would cover Harry's journey to the secure location where he would remain for the time being.

It wasn't long before Dedalus Diggle and Hestia Jones arrived and entered the home. Monroe listened in on Vernon Dursley's disgruntled rant about having to leave his home, and Harry explaining the situation to him, along with Dudley's surprising admission of gratitude and friendship with Harry. He smiled as the Dursleys eventually acquiesced to Harry's logic and left the house with the two wizards, leaving Harry alone in the house.

But not for long. Almost to the second the Dursleys left, an A.K. appeared outside the house. He looked around, almost as if expecting someone to show up with him, then Apparated directly into the house. Monroe followed him, invisibly.

Inside, Harry and A.K. were facing one another. Harry had drawn his wand and was pointing it at A.K., who appeared amused by it. "I don't know who you are," Harry was saying. "My friends are going to be here any minute — you'd better get out of here!"

"Wondering how I got inside in the first place?" A.K. asked. Harry didn't respond. "It's easy enough — I'm you."

"Come again?" Harry frowned, not understanding.

"I'm Harry Potter, just like you," A.K. elaborated. "Well, not _exactly_ like you — I've had some unique experiences that make it possible for me to hop from dimension to dimension, to alternate versions of my life."

"What for?" Harry asked, genuinely puzzled. The idea of dimension hopping had apparently never occurred to this Harry Potter.

"To destroy Voldemort," A.K. replied. "Or to help you destroy him, if you can."

"Or not," I added, appearing to the both of them. Harry looked surprised, but A.K. only rolled his eyes.

"_You_ again," A.K. said. "Aren't you getting tired of fucking up my missions?"

"Not really," I said, mildly. "Aren't you getting tired of having to follow that blood oath you made?"

"Who the bloody hell are _you_?" Harry almost shouted at me. I ignored him for the moment; my attention was fixed on A.K.

"That's my business," A.K. declared. "You should nose _out_ while you still can."

"Or what?" I wanted to know. There wasn't anything the average A.K. could do to harm me, a Power. "You know you can't beat me."

A.K. folded his arms across his chest, a gesture of defiance. "Oh, but I can do some things you won't like," he warned.

"Such as?"

"You'll find out if you don't piss off," A.K. threatened.

"Maybe I'll just vaporize you and send you back to your Horcrux dimension," I mused. Harry was following this conversation with his mouth open — he'd heard terms he could barely comprehend.

"Wait a minute!" Harry finally cried. "You don't have to fight like this!"

"I'm afraid we do," A.K. disagreed. "It's _his_ fault," he indicated me. I put on an expression of bored disinterest.

"Why don't you stop being a jerk and just leave," I suggested. "This Harry will do just fine dealing with Voldemort on his own."

"Not that point," A.K. snapped. "_I'm_ going to be the one to kill him!"

"No, you're not," I said, and A.K. vanished in a flash of light.

"What happened?" Harry asked, blinking tears from the light in his eyes.

"I vaporized him," I said. "Don't worry," I added, at the look of horror on Harry's face. "He hasn't died permanently — his soul will reappear in his Horcrux dimension and he'll get a new body pretty quickly."

Harry was shaking his head. "Horcrux _dimension_? I don't have any idea what that _is_. In fact, I don't get _any_ of this," he said, feebly. "Why was he here? Why are _you_ here? What does this have to do with me leaving my home — which I'm supposed to do straightaway, by the way."

"Yeah, the Order of the Phoenix will be here shortly, to transport you to safety before your birthday," I said, in summary. "Voldemort and his men are going to try and stop you."

"They don't even know about it," Harry protested. "They think I'm supposed to leave on July 30." I shook my head.

"No, they got wind of the real plan," I told him. "They're going to be waiting for you just outside the protection of your home. What A.K. planned to do, I'm sure, was to take your place and kill Voldemort as he tried to kill you."

Harry appeared ambivalent at this. "Isn't it the idea to get rid of Voldemort?" he asked. "I don't know if I have a problem if he does it or I do — I'd almost rather it was _him_, in fact!

"Well," I shrugged. "That's up to you, I suppose. My concern is the ripple effects these alterations to each universe causes throughout the multiverse."

"I don't understand any of that," Harry shook his head.

"Not that you need to," I pointed out. "But if A.K. helps you destroy Voldemort in _this_ universe, another universe is created where someone—maybe an 'Anti-A.K.' — helps Voldemort kill _you_. So there's no net gain for what A.K. is doing."

"Then why's he doing it?" Harry asked.

"He swore a blood oath to destroy Voldemort," Monroe explained. "The problem is, he also learned how to move between dimensions, and his blood oath expanded to include all the Voldemorts he has access to.

"The problem is also compounded by the fact that there are multiple A.K.s," I continued. "Each one of them is out there, doing his own thing, and they're all just making things worse."

"And what are _you_ supposed to do about this?" Harry asked. "Aren't you interfering in my life just as — er, I guess, _I_ was, as A.K.?"

"I'm not interfering the way A.K. is," I replied. "If I help you kill Voldemort, instead of doing it myself, balance is maintained in the multiverse."

"Well, that makes me feel _so_ much better," Harry said, sarcastically. "Right now I'm just trying to survive long enough to — er, well, do what I have to do," he finished, evasively.

"To find the rest of Voldemort's Horcruxes, destroy him, then take care of Voldemort himself," I summarized for him, completing the rest of his unfinished statement. "I know all about your plans, Harry." I looked toward the staircase. "Why don't you go up and get Hedwig, and have a last look around the place before the Order gets here? I'll be going now. Good luck." I nodded and vanished.

"Wait a —" Harry looked unsettled by my sudden "departure." In reality I was still present, but had become invisible and undetectable again. I wanted to watch the proceedings with as little interference as possible. Harry finally shrugged and ran upstairs, coming back down a minute later with Hedwig's cage, his Firebolt, and his rucksack. He dropped them at the foot of the stairs, then began reminiscing to Hedwig over various things he remembered about living here the past 16 years. The owl was sulking, however, and didn't seem interested in what Harry was saying. It was interesting to me, however, because I'd never seen this particular episode in Harry's life; I'd never come to a Harry Potter universe at this specific time before. Harry finally turned to the door of the cupboard under the stairs, where he'd spent most of his first ten years in this house, telling Hedwig about living in there before he'd ever met her. He finally fell silent, and I left him to his thoughts, not wanting to intrude on them by reading his mind.

There was a sudden roar of an engine nearby, and Harry straightened up, banging his head on the doorframe. Rubbing his head and swearing at the pain (I smiled a bit, as it was funny listening to Harry swear) Harry rushed to the back door, where the roar had come from, and ran out to greet Ron, Hermione and Hagrid. The rest of the Order was with them, I saw, dismounting brooms and skeletal black winged thestrals. They all came back into the kitchen, where Mad-Eye Moody, holding two large bags, described the change in plan.

I listened with only mild interest — this part was pretty straightforward, with the six Harry Potter impostures and using forms of transportation that couldn't track Harry's Trace. I watched as Harry gave some of his hair to Moody, who place it in a container of Polyjuice Potion and passed it around to the six volunteers, who then changed into matching clothing. As they prepared to leave, I teleported to the Burrow, knowing that was their ultimate destination. I only hoped that no one beside Mad-Eye was going to be killed.

=ooo=

At the Burrow, Ginny and Mrs. Weasley were talking in her room. "It won't be long before they're all here," Mrs. Weasley was saying, as if doing so would make it true. Ginny nodded nervous agreement.

"I hope I've got enough to feed everyone," Molly was saying, distractedly. "It's so hard to get good food these days —"

"It'll be fine, Mum," Ginny told her, rubbing her arm. "We'll make do."

Molly smiled wanly at her daughter, the only girl child that had been born in the Weasley family for several generations. "I know, love," she murmured.

They went on like that for some time, comforting one another about all the potential problems that could happen. A part of me continued to listen to the conversation, but my primary interest was in seeing whether Harry showed up here or not. He and Hagrid were supposed to be the first ones to get here after crashing the motorcycle near Ted and Andromedea Tonks' home, then taking a Portkey here. They _should_ make it, but if not, that was all she wrote for this Harry Potter universe. In spite of my supposed disinterest and vow not to directly interfere, I was hoping Harry would make it back.

And he did. There was a sudden sound from the back yard, a heavy thud that caused both Molly and Ginny to scream in surprise and bolt down the stairs, through the kitchen to fling open the back door, where Harry and Hagrid were picking themselves up off the ground.

Mrs. Weasley looked at both of them apprehensively. "Harry? You are the real Harry?" she cried. "What happened? Where are the others?"

"What d'you mean?" Harry looked surprised at the question. "Isn't anyone else back?" The expression on Mrs. Weasley's face was all the answer he needed.

"The Death Eaters were waiting for us," Harry explained. "We were surrounded the moment we took off — they knew it was tonight — I don't know what happened to anyone else, four of them chased us, it was all we could do to get away, and then Voldemort caught up with us —"

Harry stopped, looking guilty, a look that did not abate when Molly said, "Thank goodness you're alright," and pulled him into a hug.

Hagrid, who looked a little shaky, asked, "Haven't got any brandy, have you, Molly? Fer medicinal purposes?" he added.

Molly nodded then turned and hurried into the house. I could see she was near tears, something she obviously wanted to hide from Harry and Hagrid. Harry looked at Ginny, who told him who had been expected back and in what order: first Ron and Tonks, followed by Mr. Weasley and Fred. Harry and Hagrid were expected next, followed by George and Lupin. Ginny said they should be there in about a minute — the others had missed their Portkeys, which were still lying in the yard.

Molly returned with a bottle of brandy, which Hagrid took and drained in one draft. Just after, Ginny shouted and pointed toward the back yard, where a blue glow had appeared. George and Lupin appeared in the glow, spinning then both fell onto the ground. George's face and shoulder were covered in blood, and Harry raced over to help Lupin carry him into the sitting room. As Molly bent over her son, Lupin grabbed Harry and forced him back into the kitchen, where over Hagrid's protests to leave him alone, he asked Harry what creature had been in the corner during his first visit to Lupin's office. Harry, surprised at Lupin's roughness, answered his question haltingly, but correctly — a grindylow.

Satisfied, Lupin released Harry and explained that they had been betrayed, that Voldemort knew Harry was being moved tonight rather than on the 30th, the false story that had been fed to the Ministry. Harry explained how Voldemort had caught up with him and Hagrid near the end of their escape, after the Death Eaters pursuing him seemed to recognize him as the real Harry, because he had Disarmed Stan Shunpike.

"Harry!" Lupin cried, aghast. "The time for Disarming is past! These people are trying to capture and kill you! At least Stun if you aren't prepared to kill!" He and Harry had words about this — Harry felt that Disarming was a reasonable move, as it had worked against Voldemort three years earlier, when the Dark Lord was restored to his original form. They only stopped arguing when Hagrid, who'd finally wedged himself into the Burrow's kitchen, sat down on a chair, smashing it to pieces. Harry glanced into the sitting room, then addressed Lupin once again.

"Will George be okay?" he asked.

Lupin's expression softened. "I think so," he said. "Although there's no chance of replacing his ear, not when it's been cursed off —"

A sound from outside distracted him. Both he and Harry jumped over Hagrid, who was still sitting on the floor, and ran outside. Another figure had appeared in the yard: the tall robed form of Kingsley Shacklebolt, who had landed on his feet from the Portkey arrival with the practiced skill of long years in the Ministry. At their approach, Harry saw Kingsley raise his wand and point it at Lupin, who stopped and waited for him to speak.

"The last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us?" Kingsley demanded.

"'Harry is the best hope we have,'" Lupin quoted, calmly. "'Trust him.'"

Kingsley pointed his wand at Harry, but Lupin held up a hand. "It's him, I've checked." Kingsley lowered his wand.

Harry was looking around nervously. Why had Kingsley returned alone? "Where's —"

"Hermione is dead," Kingsley said, in a flat, emotionless voice. "She was killed by Voldemort just before we reached Muriel's home."

_What the hell_? I thought to myself. _That's not what was supposed to happen_! I stopped listening to their conversation. Hermione was dead? I disappeared, reappearing in the sky over Muriel Crabbe's home. Here is where I would find out what really occurred. With a wave of my hand I invoked an incantation that would display what had gone on here in the previous hour.

As I watched, Hermione and Kingsley approached the area on a thestral, pursued by four Death Eaters on brooms. Hermione and Kingsley were both firing Stunning spells — as I watched, one of Kingsley's bolts knocked a Death Eater off his broom. The man fell into the darkness, and I heard a _splunch_ as he hit the ground. Hermione might have heard it as well — I saw her wince as the sound reached my ears.

Only a moment later two green bolts slammed into Hermione and the thestral, just missing Kingsley. The thestral bucked wildly, throwing Hermione off as Kingsley tried to catch her, but she slipped through his fingers and disappeared into the darkness.

I moaned in anguish, then concentrated on the person who had cast the two Killing Curses. It was Voldemort, seated on a broom. I as watched the images, he swerved away from the Death Eaters, disappearing into the darkness.

That was _not_ Voldemort, I knew. Voldemort had learned to fly under his own power — he had no need for a broom! Furious, I followed the trail my divination spell showed the false Voldemort took, back toward London and the Leaky Cauldron, where it passed inside the wizards' pub. Landing next to the entrance, I walked inside, knowing who I would find there.

A.K. was sitting at a table near the back, knocking back glasses of firewhiskey. He looked up at my approach, grinning sadistically. "I warned you," he said, as I sat down opposite him. "I told you I'd do something you wouldn't like."

"Why Hermione?" I asked tightly, controlling an anger I thought I would never feel again. I thought I had outgrown such emotions. I was wrong, it seemed.

"Why Hermione?" A.K. repeated, his eyebrows showing surprise. "Surely you can't be serious, Monroe!"

"I am," I said, bluntly. "And don't call me Shirley," I added.

A.K. looked confused for a moment, then shook his head, dismissing my poor attempt at humor. "I assume you remember that universe you visited and helped Harry learn magic before he attended Hogwarts? The one where Dudley became magical and he and Hermione were both Champions at the Triwizard Tournament?"

I nodded. That was a long time ago, subjectively, but I still remembered every moment I spent there. "So what?" I snapped.

"One of us was there as well," A.K. informed me. "It was a bit of a surprise, finding someone who was doing the same thing we were doing, but in such a roundabout way. We observed you for years there.

"You had sort of a 'thing' for Hermione, didn't you?" A.K gave me a leer that made me want to slap him into nothingness. "That's why I picked her, to punish you for interfering in our business."

"She was an innocent bystander," I objected, maintaining a decorum I no longer felt. One way or another, this A.K. was going to pay for what he'd done to Hermione.

"There's no such thing in the War Against Voldemort," A.K. shook his head. "You made the rules yourself." He rolled his eyes with evident disdain. "I don't know why you think we'd just do nothing about you, Monroe."

"So what now?" I asked.

"Well, it's your move," A.K. responded. "You can walk away, and nobody gets hurt. Or you can continue to interfere and more of Harry's friends will be killed." He sat back in his chair. "Up to you."

"You were right about Hermione," I said, slowly. "I did like her best, after Harry. It was a mistake for you to kill her."

"_You're_ the one who made the mistake, mate," A.K. drawled. "I'll keep on killing Harry's friends as long as I have to, until you give up and go away. Pretty soon all the other versions of me will catch on as well, and you'll have to leave us all alone."

"And what if I vaporize you again?" I asked him.

A.K. snorted a derisive laugh. "I'll just keep coming back — you bloody know that already! There's nothing you can do to keep me from coming back."

I sat motionless for some time, thinking. There wasn't going to be any good outcome from this, I knew. Mostly because I didn't really want one anymore. A.K. had crossed the line, as far as I was concerned.

Finally I looked up at A.K. "Well, you've forced my hand," I said. "There isn't anything I can do to kill you without screwing up the multiverse even more."

"Right," A.K. smirked. "So —"

"But wait," I interrupted. "I do have an idea."

As A.K. raised an eyebrow questioningly, I pointed a finger at him, vaporizing him once again. This time, however, instead of letting his essence be drawn back to his Horcrux dimension, to be reconstituted into a new body, I set a trace on it that allowed me to follow it. I vanished from the Leaky Cauldron —

— reappearing a timeless moment later inside the Horcrux dimension. It was a "pocket universe," a place created by A.K. himself, or _themselves_, to be accurate, to hold a fragment of each of their souls. I had materialized on the surface of a dark, barren world, one that had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and Earth-normal gravity even though it was only a few dozen miles in diameter. In all other respects, however, it was a rocky, featureless planetoid.

Next to me was a large, stone cauldron, with Gubraithian fire burning perpetually beneath it. The liquid inside it bubbled vigorously, with vaporous fumes rising from it. It took only one sniff to determine that all the ingredients to restore A.K.'s body had been added — the only thing missing was A.K. himself. That, I suspected, was to be supplied by the plant that grew next to the cauldron, a strange-looking tree that somewhat resembled the Whomping Willow, but had a long branch overhanging the cauldron, with a bud forming at the end of it. As I watched, the bud grew larger and larger, forming a cocoon that became transparent as it stretched. I could see a small body inside the cocoon — A.K.'s fetal form. His essence had been drawn to the tree, where the other half of his soul resided. The tree was his Horcrux. The fetus had formed rapidly — it would only be a few more seconds before it opened, dumping him into the cauldron, where the restoration spell would return his body to the moment of his death, with all his memories intact.

This dimension was a singular place that all the A.K.s used to restore their bodies. That seemed reasonable enough to me — they were all the same person, in a way; the biggest distinction between them was the specific memories each of them had. I extended my senses over the surface of the small world, viewing the various methods the other A.K.s were using to reconstitute themselves. The version this A.K. used was an early one, closely following the method Voldermot had used, but there were more sophisticated ways the later A.K.s had come up with. I saw a Phoenix Box, a magical device that would bring a person who was at death's door back to normal, restored in body and mind no matter how badly he or she had been mutilated, cursed, or otherwise damaged; another machine churned out clones of Harry; I could see rows and rows of his body waiting for that specific A.K. to be drawn to this dimension after his death in the real world. All in all, there were 42 different versions of the restorative magic. And there was nothing I could do to destroy them that wouldn't send shockwaves of altered probability through the multiverse, screwing up untold trillions of realities with the backlash of those deaths.

But there _was_ something I _could_ do to slow down the A.K.s enough to make it damned hard for them to make a dent in their plans to destroy all Voldemorts.

I started in one of the barren areas not close to any of the restorative methods the A.K.s were using. With a wave of my hand a new Phoenix Box came into existence. A handy device, this contraption, able to restore a body to normal in seconds. This was only the beginning, however. Surrounding it, I created 42 Soul Catchers, magical objects resembling tall, thin bottles that would draw a specific soul that appeared in this dimension inexorably to it. I made all of them at least twice as powerful as any of the other 42 Horcrux receptacles scattered around the planet, and tuned each of them to a specific A.K. I linked all of them together magically, so that none of them would function until all of them had received a soul; the Soul Catcher that received the last soul fragment would be activated, creating a fetal version of A.K. that would be placed in the Phoenix Box to be restored. I added a random delay generator to each Soul Catcher, so that the essence of that A.K. would not be immediately transmitted to the activated Soul Catcher, but would delay a random period of time from one week to ten years.

Before I did anything else, however, I teleported back to where I originally entered this dimension. The cocoon on the Willow tree had discharged its occupant, and the stone cauldron was empty. A.K. #2 had returned to the Harry Potter universe where I had vaporized him only a few seconds earlier. Good. Everything was in place. I activated all the Soul Catchers so that they would draw the Harry Potter essence they were each attuned to them when it appeared in this place, rather than the Horcrux that would normally perform that duty. I vanished, returning to world #1550.

A.K. had returned a few days further along in the timeline of that world, to August 1, 1997, about 4:30 in the afternoon, at the Burrow. Kingsley's Patronus had just delivered the news that the Ministry had fallen, and Harry, Ron and — surprisingly — Ginny had just Apparated away from the wedding. The place was in utter chaos as other guests Apparated away as well — the enchantments protecting the Burrow had broken. I could see Arthur and Molly trying to calm down the remaining guests.

And, to one side, a hooded figure pointed a wand at Molly, saying the words, "_Avada Kedavr_ —" before he and I suddenly Apparated away.

We both reappeared on a windswept hilltop in the province of Quebec, in Canada. The green bolt of the Killing Curse erupted from A.K.'s wand, destroying a nearby bush. "What the fuck?" A.K. shouted, then spun to face me. "_You_ again! Haven't you got it through your thick skull, this is _never_ going to stop until you piss off and leave us alone!"

"Yeah, I got that," I said flatly, stepping closer to A.K. His wand came up in an instinctive, defensive motion. I ignored it. "But I've fixed things so it's going to be a lot tougher for you." Briefly, I explained my visit to the Horcrux dimension and the changes I had made there. A.K. paled as I did so.

"You mean," he said, after I'd finished explaining. "All of us are going to be placed into a single body?" I nodded. "And this will only happen sometime after all of us have died, and it could be years before that happens?" I nodded again. "You fucking bastard!" he snarled.

"It could be worse," I replied, mildly. "I could have just vaporized the lot of you and made your Horcrux dimension a one-way only passage, like a Roach Motel — your souls go in but they don't come out. After you died you'd all be stuck in there forever — sort of like being in hell."

"What the fuck do you know about being in hell?" A.K. growled. "That's where you _ought_ to be, seeing as how you're protecting Voldemort!"

"Wrong," I said. "I'm protecting the balance of the universe from all of you."

"So now what?" A.K. spat at me, though he clearly knew. In answer, I raised my index finger, making ready to point it at him.

A.K. suddenly began casting his dimension hopping magic, trying to get away. I suppose his survival instinct was overriding the tug of his vow to kill Voldemort wherever he found him. Before he could finish the spell, however, I pointed my finger at him and he exploded into a fine, bloody mist.

"That's the biz, sweetheart," I said to the bloody air, quoting one of my other favorite fictional characters. None of the other A.K.s would know about the trap I'd set for all of them — I could mop up at my leisure, with minimal damage to the multiverse from their meddling.

I allowed myself a smile as I vanished from world #1550, to take a small, well-deserved vacation before beginning the task of hunting down the A.K.s, one by one, and sending them to the Horcrux dimension, to await their reconstitution in a single body. I wondered how those 42 souls would handle a situation like that. It would be interesting to find out.


	5. World 4783, AK 1: United We Stand

**Ex Machina IV: Monroe Vs. A.K.  
**Chapter Five

World #4783 / A.K. #1/(the One)  
"**United We Stand"**

_Updated July 30, 2011_

I materialized in the Harry Potter world I'd designated #4783 with a sense of anticipation and finality. This was the last world I would have to visit before all of the A.K.s were sent off to their Horcrux dimension and bound into a single being. I imagined the cacophony of voices that A.K. would have to deal with when all 42 versions of him were jammed into the same body. It should prove interesting.

My watch read about 10:15 a.m. on September 1, 1981, the day Harry made his first trip on the Hogwarts Express. A.K. was starting out pretty early in this universe, I noted. I also noted the presence of several Death Eaters stationed some distance away, watching the Dursley house. They were out beyond the range of the magic that protected Harry while living on Privet Drive. For the moment I ignored them — there was nothing they could do to Harry before he left Privet Drive, which was about to take place as Vernon and Petunia were taking Dudley to an appointment in London to have his pigtail removed. I meant that literally, of course, since Hagrid had cursed Dudley on Harry's birthday and given him a pigtail (while trying to turn him into a pig).

The only question was, when _would_ the Death Eaters decide to strike, and what would A.K. do about it? This would be a departure from a "Harry Potter standard" universe, where everything went according (more or less) to the narrative in the seven novels written by J.K. Rowling. Oh, I suppose I should point out that I, James Harrison Monroe, originally came from a universe where Harry Potter was just a character in a series of books, and that in my universe of origin a Singularity event had taken place around the year 2032. The Singularity is a tipping point in human progress when Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) reaches, then surpasses human intelligence. Once that occurs, the machine intelligence can make changes much more rapidly than humans with normal intelligence are able to do. The problem in my universe was that the A.I.s didn't bother to let anyone (except for a very few, over time) in on their existence, and they began introducing improvements to the human condition slowly, avoiding the tipping point. By the time I left Earth, in the late 2150's, it was a virtual paradise, but people were still more or less human, though they were disease and infirmity-free, and very long-lived. But I was not like the vast majority of humanity.

I was a Power.

The changes to my biology, over the decades of my affiliation with the Singites (a shorter version of the name Singularitarianites) made it possible for me to enhance my own physical body, and my mind; I found it a very evolutionary and revelatory experience. Over the decades, I learned how to directly manipulate matter and energy, down to the molecular level, then to the atomic and subatomic regions, until there was no limit to what I was capable of. Being a Power is something like being a god. I don't think of myself as a god, but it is an apt comparison. I can do anything that can be done, I can learn anything that can be conceptualized and understood, and I can go anywhere that exists and can be reached. Time, space, dimensions, are no longer barriers to my will.

You can imagine, therefore, why the Death Eaters didn't concern me much. Only A.K. was a problem, because he and his fellows (who were all now stuck in their Horcrux dimension awaiting the arrival of their last "brother") tended to wreak havoc on universe balance, sometimes killing Voldemort directly, sometimes killing others at random or on a whim. Every time they did this, it created an alternate universe where Voldemort triumphed, somehow. My approach had been to use a lighter hand, helping Harry in more subtle ways, so that multiversal balance was preserved.

The front door to number 4 opened and Vernon Dursley bustled out, looking cross, followed closely by Petunia, with one arm wrapped protectively around her son, Dudley. She looked as if there was something foul-smelling under her nose. Vernon and Petunia put Dudley in the back seat of their car, then Vernon turned back to the house and said, loudly (but not so loudly that the neighbors might hear), "Boy, hurry up! We don't have all day!"

Harry came out of the house, dragging his trunk and Hedwig's cage. Vernon waited impatiently at the boot of the vehicle for him. He opened the boot but made Harry try to lift it in, helping him only when it became apparent Harry couldn't lift the trunk high enough by himself. Vernon also wanted to put the owl's cage in the trunk, but Harry backed away from him, shaking his head. "Oh all right," Vernon snapped. "Put the ruddy bird in the back seat, but mind you, I don't want anything on that upholstery!" Harry and Hedwig got into the back seat, along with Dudley, who shifted as far away from them as he could, and the car pulled out of number 4's driveway and onto Privet Drive. I floated behind them, some distance from the car, curious when the Death Eaters might strike and what A.K. would do about it. Presumably he would have to intervene, unless he planned to let Harry be killed so he could kill Voldemort himself.

Harry and the Dursleys traveled without incident to the car park for King's Cross Station, where an irritated Vernon unloaded the trunk onto a trolley, while Harry watched, holding Hedwig's cage. He even pushed the trolley into the station, Harry following with a puzzled look on his face — he must have wondered why Vernon was being so kind to him. That is, until they reached Platform Nine, when Vernon stopped and turned to him, a nasty grin on his beefy, florid face.

"Well, there you are, boy," he said, pointing to the platform numbers ahead of them. "Number Nine — Number Ten." He smirked down at Harry. "Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don't seem to have built it yet, do they?"

Harry was looking a bit panicked. After the magic he'd seen on his birthday, both from Hagrid's visit and when visiting Diagon Alley, I wondered what he was so worried about. I supposed he thought he would be able to walk right onto Platform 9¾ with no problem.

Vernon put on an even nastier grin, beginning to walk away as he said, "Have a nice ter—" when six black-robed figures sudden appeared, surrounding them. The Death Eaters had finally made their move. Vernon backed hastily away from Harry, his hands raised. One of the men waved a wand at him, and there was a _crack_ as a magical bolt hit Vernon. He yelped in pain, turned tail and bolted from the station.

"Grab the boy!" one of them shouted, and one of the other masked men grabbed Harry, then tried to Apparate away. But he was prevented by an Anti-Disapparition Jinx.

"What are you waiting for? Go!" the first Death Eater shouted.

"I can't!" the man holding Harry shouted back. "Someone's Jinxed this area!" I recognized that voice, as agitated as it sounded — so uncharacteristic of the Hogwarts Potions Master.

"Get him outside!" the first Death Eater shouted, pointing toward the exit where Vernon had disappeared through, but as he looked at the other Death Eaters he did a sudden double-take. "Six? I thought only five —"

Just then one of the masked men suddenly threw off his mask, revealing the face of — Harry Potter. But it wasn't the face of the eleven-year old boy being kidnapped, but an older, more battle-scarred Harry, noticeably taller and much more muscular than the other Death Eaters. Obviously, this was A.K., I knew.

The other Death Eaters gaped at him in stunned surprise — which was a mistake, as Harry pointed his wand in quick succession at three of the men, blowing them off their feet and away from Harry. Just Stunners, I saw; A.K. must have something in mind for them. I doubted it would be pleasant for them.

That left only the Death Eater holding Harry and one other man. Both of them had now drawn their wands and were pointing them at A.K., though neither of them cast a spell. They glanced quickly at one another — I could tell they were both unnerved by the appearance of an older, more powerful Harry Potter, in spite of the fact that one of them held the "real" Harry Potter around his neck.

"Who are you?" the Death Eater holding Harry spoke, though much more calmly than before, all things considered. Snape had recovered his equanimity — I wondered if he was here to keep Harry out of the hands of the Death Eaters, somehow, or if he was really on their side in this universe. But the question quickly became moot when A.K. suddenly slashed his wand toward Snape at throat level and a gash appeared across Snape's neck, spurting blood. His Death Eater mask fell away, cut in two. Blood spilled onto Harry as Snape fell to the ground, bleeding out, and A.K.'s slash continued, cutting down the other Death Eater as well. Long blond locks splayed out from the second Death Eater's hood as he fell. It was Lucius Malfoy — I recognized the hair.

Harry was looking around, taking in the unconscious Death Eaters who'd been knocked unconscious by A.K.'s Stunners, and the two bloody corpses behind him. He looked up at A.K. as the latter took out a pack of smokes and calmly lit up. "Who the bloody hell are you?" Harry asked him.

A.K. smirked. "I would have said, your guardian angel, but heaven's got little to do with this," he replied, between puffs on his cigarette. "Who do you think I am?"

Harry shook his head. "I have no idea," he said. "You look familiar, but —" his voice cut off; he evidently didn't want to say what he was thinking.

A.K. gestured toward his face. "These scars probably don't help, do they?" He pushed back his hair, revealing a forehead devoid of a lightning scar. "Also, I don't have your trademark, you'll notice."

Harry nodded slowly, with a shrug. "Yeah, you look like — me, I guess, if I was, um, old." A sudden thought occurred to him. "Are you my dad?"

A.K. rolled his eyes, flicking away the butt of his cigarette. "No, I'm not your daddy — or your older brother, or a long-lost uncle, or any of that bullshit. I'm _you_."

Harry was having trouble processing this. "What do you mean?" he cried. "Are you from the future or something like that?"

"You've been watching too many Great Humberto shows," A.K. snorted. _The Great Humberto_, Dudley's favorite TV show, came up with all sorts of wild ideas — spaceships, time travel, and the like. Dudley had badgered his parents for a VCR, to record his shows off the telly, and Harry sometimes watched them on the rare occasions the Dursleys left him at home not locked in his cupboard.

"Yeah," Harry retorted. "I'm sure you being here has a perfectly normal explanation!" I almost chuckled; this Harry was a bit cheekier than some of his counterparts.

A.K. shrugged, but looked around as people were beginning to gather, whispering and pointing at the five cloaked men lying about the platform, two of them covered in blood. "We need to go somewhere a bit more private to continue this conversation," he said, taking hold of Harry's arm. But when he tried to Apparate away, nothing happened.

"What the fuck?" A.K. snarled, looking around. People were beginning to close in around him, and he pointed his wand at the person nearest to him, a conductor who backed away, hands held in front of him. Apparently the sight of a scarred man in battle fatigues, even if only holding a stick, was frightening enough.

I made myself visible, appearing in front of Harry and A.K. "I couldn't let you leave," I told him. "Harry has a train to catch in —" I glanced at my watch "— in seventeen minutes."

A.K. pointed his wand at me. "I know you," he rasped. "You're that Monroe bastard, the one who's been giving me a hard time lately."

"The very one," I said, with a very small bow toward him. "Before we talk, though, let's tidy up, shall we?" The five Death Eater bodies disappeared, along with the blood stains; around us, people were shaking their heads, as if they'd just awakened, and began wandering away, ignoring us completely. "There," I said. "Now Harry will be able to meet the Weasleys and make the Hogwarts Express to school."

"Okay," Harry said, now thoroughly confused. "Just who the hell are _you_?"

"Well, like A.K. here said," I replied, nodding toward the older Harry. "I'm that 'Monroe bastard,' although I prefer to go by James Harrison Monroe."

"And what do you want?" Harry asked.

"He wants to kidnap you, kid," A.K. said, before I could reply. "Just like these other fuckers tried to. You can't trust him!"

"Well, that point's about to be rendered moot," I said, gesturing toward the older Harry. A.K. vanished.

Harry looked around. "Where'd he go?" he asked.

"To a better place," I answered. "Though he probably won't think so, when he finds out what's waiting for him there."

"What about —" Harry wanted to point to the Death Eater bodies, but they were no longer around. "Erm — me?"

"What about you?" I shrugged casually. At that moment a group of people passed by us: a plump woman holding the hand of a small red-headed girl, and four red-headed boys tagging along after her, all pushing trolleys. There was an owl in a cage on one of the trolleys, Harry saw. He looked back at me. "You were trying to figure out how to get on Platform 9¾, weren't you? Follow them," I suggested.

Harry looked at them, then back at me. Finally he nodded and began pushing his trolley after them. I hung back, waiting for the inevitable reappearance of A.K., who would in all likelihood reappear only moments after I vaporized him.

Sure enough, there was a sudden _crack_ as A.K. appeared next to me. He was holding his head, obviously in agony. Squinting through the pain, he howled, "What the fuck did you _do_ to me?"

I cast an area of sound deadening around us, so no one would hear A.K.'s screaming or cursing. "I'm surprised you haven't figured it out," I said, mildly. "I put all of you in the same head."

"What the fuck — _aaaah_! — for?" A.K shouted, shaking his head wildly. It looked as if he was trying shake some of his other versions out of his head.

"Well, honestly, to make it harder for you to keep on screwing with the multiverse," I told him. "Now all 42 of you have to live in one body. That should make it pretty difficult for any of you to do your own thing, or even agree on what all of you should do together.

"I'm going to fucking kill you!" A.K. #18 shouted.

"No, we gotta figure out how to get separated again," A.K. #38 objected.

"What difference does that make, this fucker's gotta die!" A.K. #6 yelled, trying to point at me. But his hand shook so badly he finally gave up, grabbing the side of his head again.

"We gotta get out of here!" A.K. #7 insisted. "Come up with a plan!"

"_What_ plan?" A.K. #12 argued. "We know what we gotta do!"

While this schizophrenic conversation was going on, I glanced around to see Harry wheeling his trolley toward the barrier between Platforms Nine and Ten, as Mrs. Weasley and Ginny watched. Harry disappeared, and Ginny began talking animatedly with her mother about meeting Harry Potter.

A.K.'s wand suddenly shot out, pointing at Ginny, and I grabbed his arm, pointing it skyward so the green bolt that emerged from it slammed into the ceiling, cracking it. "I guess you all agree you don't like Ginny," I said, sardonically.

"Put me back!" A.K. #32 screamed at me.

"Put yourself back," I snapped, releasing his arm. It pointed back at Ginny again and this time I just blocked all neural commands from his head, so that it dropped limply to his side, the wand slipping from his fingers.

I held my hand over A.K.'s wand and it leapt upward into it. I examined it briefly: it was Harry's familiar holly wand, eleven inches long, with a phoenix feather core; the same as "canon Harry's" wand. I stuck the wand into his fatigue pants. A.K. was still holding his head with one hand, trying to manage the 42 versions of him inside his head.

"Listen — we can work together!" A.K. #1 was saying. "We can do it!"

"I liked it better the _old_ way!" A.K. #17 wailed.

"You pussy," A.K. #25 snarled. "Man up, wouldja, before I bitch-slap you?"

"The first thing we have to, in any event," A.K. #2 interrupted, "is to take out that Monroe fucker. Hey, did I just say that out loud?"

"You did," I chuckled. "But you're not the first A.K. to threaten me. Not that I'm concerned," I added. "I doubt if you could tie your shoe right now, let alone attack me."

"Okay, okay, everyone shut the fuck up!" A.K. #1 said, then after a few moments took his hand away from his head. "Good," he said. He looked at me. "I have to admit, Monroe, you really fucked us over pretty good."

"You're welcome," I replied. "I hope you know it was for the greater good," I added, rubbing it in.

"Don't make us laugh," A.K. snorted. "You've made everything _worse_. The blood oath that each of us made is now 42 times as strong as it was before. We all still want to go out and kill Voldemorts, but each of us wants to do it their own way! We can't agree on which one to do first!"

"Well, that was the plan, Stan," I pointed out. "You need to stop going out and killing Voldemorts yourself, or anyone else who pisses you off, no matter how evil or screwed up you think they are. Every time you do it your actions create an alternate universe, one in which Voldemort wins the day, not you. In other words, every time you kill Voldemort directly or someone that helps Harry in any way, you render your actions moot."

"But the oath —"

"That 'oath' is an albatross around your neck," I snapped, my patience wearing thin. "It's controlling _you_ — you don't control it anymore."

"A.K. appeared to reflect on that. "You may be right," he admitted. He looked down at his useless right arm. "Speaking of control — can you…?"

"Oh, yeah," I said, nodding at his arm, reconnecting the nerves, and A.K. flexed his arm, wiggling his fingers.

"Thanks," he muttered.

"Look, I can purge the oath from you," I offered. "That way, you'll be able to go after Voldemort in a more controlled way, by helping the people in the universes you visit to get rid of him rather than doing it yourself. That way the balance of the multiverse will be maintained."

But A.K. shook his head. "We — _I_ — am not giving up the oath," he declared angrily. He pulled out his wand and cast his dimension hopping magic. "I'll be back," he said, just before he vanished.

"Sure, Arnold," I said into the silence, before Disapparating myself back to the home I always stayed at when in a Harry Potter universe, back in Little Whinging. I was going to enjoy myself for a while before worrying what A.K. would do next.

_Little Whinging, Surrey_

My little home was a haven of sorts for me, a place where I could relax and forget for a while that I'd given myself the task of traveling from universe to universe stopping the A.K.s from destabilizing the multiverse. My house, at number 24 Magnolia Crescent, sat directly across from the alley that led to Wisteria Walk. Outwardly, it resembled many of the other houses on the street; there was no point in calling attention to the house by making it large or ostentatious. Inside, however, was quite a different story.

I kept a large study filled with books from a number of different universes. A whole section was devoted to magic, both wand-based and wandless, and both for wizards and non-magicals who used extrinsic magic (that being magic that derived from an outside source rather than internally-generated power). A.K. had been to this house before, back in world #1423 where he and I first met. I suppose I should add that it was I and A.K. #37 who first met; I'd recently learned that the A.K.s had been watching me for some time prior to that, during my first foray into helping Harry more indirectly, more subtly, than simply appearing in a universe where he'd failed to defeat Voldemort and taking over. I had spent 15 years in that other universe, mentoring Harry in magic and guiding him toward his goal of defeating the Dark Lord [see A/N #1]. In fact, my original home was still there, for the Harry of that universe to use as he saw fit. The house I kept with me now was a duplicate of that home, and I had restocked its library with books from my travels since then. When I planned to leave this universe forever, I would pack up the house, shrinking it down to a cube about an inch in size, and drop it into my pocket.

I had settled into my favorite comfortable chair in my study, reading a copy of today's _Daily Prophet_ — September 2, 1981, the day after Harry had left for Hogwarts and his first day of classes there. There was already something in the paper about him.

* * *

**Boy Who Lived Attending Hogwarts**

Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, was accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry yesterday, Ministry officials informed this paper.

In 1981, James and Lily Potter, of Godric's Hollow in the West Country, were brutally killed by You-Know-Who. Their infant son, Harry, survived the Killing Curse through some unknown means, sustaining only a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, which is still visible today.

The whereabouts of Master Potter have been unknown for the past decade. Speculations have run high that he was out of the country, in the care of a Muggle family, or that he was kept out of sight in a wizarding home somewhere in the West Country near his original home in Godric's Hollow.

When questioned about the Boy Who Lived, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore responded, "I'm sure that young Harry has been living a normal life, and I am pleased to welcome him to Hogwarts."

* * *

The article went on with other speculations about Harry, along with background information on Voldemort, and Harry's parents. Basically, the _Prophet_ had been blindsided by the sudden appearance of Harry Potter (as Dumbledore probably anticipated) and they were scrambling to look like they knew what they were talking about. I scanned the rest of the articles in the paper, committing them to memory, then Vanished it.

I looked around my study, realizing that I was already bored with waiting for A.K. to reappear. For a dimension hopper, a day is a very, very long time, since I knew A.K. could choose the location and time of his reappearance in this universe. What he didn't know was that I had cast a spell limiting his return point to within a mile of my house, and had made that entire area impossible to Disapparate out of. He is thus forced to come to me or try to run out of the area, and I had detection charms in place that would let me know of his arrival. Ah! There it was!

"What the fuck? Aw, son — of — a — bitch!" The sound of A.K.'s cursing came from somewhere in my front yard. I glanced at my watch: 2:45 p.m.—it had taken him (or them) long enough to get here.

I waited for him to hammer furiously on my door, then calmly said, "Come in." A.K. threw open the door and stomped inside, slamming it shut. He glared at me, his facial scars oddly florid, reminding me of Vernon's pulsing purple vein whenever he got upset. "How's it going?" I asked, a smirk on my face.

"You know goddam well how it's going," A.K. snarled, dropping into a nearby recliner. He fumbled for several moments with a pack of cigarettes, then began fishing around in his clothes for either his wand or a lighter. I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together and the cigarette lit. A.K. nodded a curt acknowledgement and took a deep drag of the smoke. "Everyone's finally on board with this, more or less," he said, pointing to his head. "But no fucking way we're staying like this forever!"

"It's up to you to fix it, if you want a different arrangement," I told him. A.K. said nothing, just looking at me. "Do you want something to drink?" I asked finally, to break the silence. "I have beer, wine, firewhiskey — pretty much anything you can get."

A.K. appeared to ponder for a moment. "I don't always drink beer," he said. "But when I do, I prefer Dos Equis."

I chuckled. "Why don't you have a go at this, then?" Two bottles appeared in my hands. I tossed one to him. He managed to catch it and look at the label. The label read, "Tres Equis." I made a flipping gesture with my thumb and both caps popped off the bottles. "Stay thirsty, my friend," I said.

A.K. snorted but tipped the bottle back, draining the entire contents in a few seconds. I was impressed. "Drinking for forty-two now?" I asked.

"You should know," A.K. replied, wiping his mouth on a sleeve. He set the bottle down on a nearby coffee table and it disappeared, replaced with a new, full bottle. "Handy," he commented, picking up the new bottle and taking a deep swig of it. He set it back on the table, then looked at me with a serious expression on his face. "So, what's next?" he asked.

"That's up to you," I said again. "I have no reason to help put you back the way you all were, if you're just going to go back to doing what you were before."

A.K. leaned forward in his recline, his hands clasped before him. "What if — what if I agreed to let you remove our blood vows to kill all Voldemorts?" He suddenly raised a hand, as if arguing with someone. "No, let me speak!" he said loudly. He finally turned back to me with an expectant look on his face.

"I can do that," I nodded. "But as to separating you into your distinct identities once more, you're still on your own for that."

A.K. frowned, looking conflicted about the decision he was trying to make. "Okay," he said at last. "We'll deal with that."

"Fine," I said. I made a brushing gesture toward him. "Your blood vows are gone," I told him. "Good luck."

"Thanks," A.K. said, with thinly veiled sarcasm. He stood and strode out the front door, not even bothering to close it. I canceled the spell limiting his ability to Apparate within this universe, and a moment later I heard a _crack_ signaling his departure. My other detection spells told me he was no longer on this world. I shrugged and turned on the telly to watch a rerun of _Fawlty Towers_.

The house exploded.

Now I admit, I was surprised, for about a millisecond. I was already impervious to any physical force, so the concussion that blew the house to flinders did me no harm, though I was flung about ten feet before my defenses kicked in and I halted in midair, righting myself and watching as pieces of my house and furnishings were scattered across Magnolia Crescent. It was damned annoying.

I touched down in the middle of what had been my study and was now a few scattered pieces of woodwork and shredded book pages. This was obviously A.K.'s doing. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," I said, in a sing-song voice. "It's time to pay the piper."

A.K. materialized in front of me. He looked subtly different — a bit taller, it seemed, and the scars on his face were gone. His battle fatigues were clean and pressed, his boots polished. "Spiffed yourself up a bit, eh?" I asked.

"I did," A.K. nodded, with a grim smile. "More than you know."

"Well, enlighten me," I suggested. A recliner materialized behind me, and I sat down in it. A Pepsi appeared in my hand. "Care for another drink?"

"Drink not with thine enemy," A.K. shook his head. "Old Klingon proverb."

"So I'm back to being your enemy again," I noted. "Why did you blow up my house?"

A.K. looked around at the debris strewn all about us. "Well, for one thing, I knew it would piss you off," he said.

"Granted," I allowed. "I'm a bit annoyed. What else?"

"Well, there's the regeneration mechanism that was built into it," he pointed out, pulling out a pack of smokes and lighting up.

I cocked my head at him. "The _what_ mechanism?" I asked, playing dumb.

"Oh please," A.K. scoffed. "Don't play the innocent fucker — you're supposed to be some all-powerful being, for Satan's sake! You know, the mechanism that will restore you if somehow you get vaporized."

"How did you know about that?" I demanded.

"We'll get to that in a minute," A.K. said. He blew out a cloud of smoke, dropping the butt of his cigarette on the floor of my ruined house and stubbing it out with his boot. "I think it's time for a showdown between us."

"It's going to be a short one," I said, warningly, and stood. "I have better things to do than indulge your self-destructive fantasies."

"Then make your move, Monroe," A.K. challenged. I shrugged and pointed a finger at him. At the same moment he raised his hand, and there was a flash of light between us. When it faded, A.K. was still standing there.

"Oho," I smiled. "An upgrade!" I sent a more powerful annihilation wave toward him, but it was deflected as well. My smile faded. _What the hell_?

"Bet you're wondering what's going on?" A.K. guessed. _Well, he wasn't wrong about that_, I thought to myself. "Want to hear what I've been up to?"

I sat back down in my recliner, leaning back lazily. "I'm all ears. Shoot."

"Do you remember that movie, _The One_?" A.K. began. "Where Jet Li kept running around from universe to universe, killing all the other versions of himself so he could absorb their power and become like a god?"

I nodded, a bit apprehensively. "That's not what happened with you, though," I pointed out. "All of your alternates are a part of you now, inside the same body."

"Yeah," A.K. agreed. "But I thought, if there's any way I could do the same thing, I could have that kind of power as well. So I went to your home universe."

"_My_ home universe?" I was a bit surprised at that. "How could you even have found it?"

"From your unique quantum wave signature."

I frowned. That level of sophistication should be beyond any of the A.K.s. "What did you expect to find there?" I asked.

"Your origin, of course," A.K. replied. "It wasn't too hard to locate you, once I was in your universe. I started out in 1991 — not much out of the ordinary happened to you until around the mid 2040's, when you found out about the artificial intelligences that were secretly controlling your world."

I didn't say anything, not liking where this was going. I'd always known that there were other Powers in the multiverse — not just alternate versions of me, but other beings who had the same kind of control over time and space that I did. I gestured for him to continue.

A.K. grinned. "Well, you were pretty busy after that, getting nanotechnology to improve your biology, then using femtotechnology to replace it with a much more interesting substrate — one made out of exotic matter, that gave you control down to the subatomic level, and probably further. It was all _very_ interesting."

"And your point?" I said, shortly.

"Well, after that, I moved far enough forward in the timeline that I could have information downloaded directly into my brain —"

"Getting pretty crowded in there, isn't it?" I asked, rudely.

"Funny," A.K. said, without laughing. "Anyway, I learned a lot about quantum mechanics and quantum wave functions, stuff I'd need to know if I were going to recreate the 'One' scenario. It took quite a while — I studied for over 20 years spread across two centuries, until I figured out what I needed to know.

"After that, it was just a matter of popping into my Hocrux dimension and altering the machinery that you added, to make the quantum wave function of our 'souls' cohere with one another."

I frowned. "I doubt that would even be possible," I said, shaking my head. "Your soul isn't a material thing."

"Not in the physical sense," A.K. agreed. "But it _does_ exist, and anything that exists can be measured and changed, just like I did to my soul when I created my Horcrux."

"By committing murder," I pointed out.

A.K. shrugged, looking unconcerned. "Po-_tay_-to, po-_tah_-to," he said, with an airy wave of his hand. "Anyway, I modified the Soul Catchers to send each soul to a Soul Melder, which transforms two or more souls into one, by modifying their quantum wave functions into a single qwiff. I then sent those merged souls into a modified Phoenix Box, one that would give my body control of matter down to the same level of interaction that you're capable of. In other words, I'm just like you now — a Power."

"Bullshit," I said.

"_Au contraire, mon frère_," A.K. wagged a finger at me. "And remember — with your house and regeneration mechanism destroyed, you have no way to be restored if you get vaporized."

"But that's not going to happen," I said. "You don't have the balls or the Power to pull that off."

"Oh, really?" A.K. sneered. "Watch." He pointed a finger at me, while I looked patronizingly at him. Suddenly I felt a wave of — _nonthingness_, I guess — wash over me, as if I were becoming unreal, insubstantial. _This couldn't be happening_, I thought. But it was, and there was nothing I could do about it, even with my Power. Everything went black —

Fuck, _now_ what?

**A/N #1: In _Ex Machina II_.**


	6. World 4783 & M402, AK One: The Fix

**Ex Machina IV: Monroe Vs. A.K.  
**Chapter Six

Worlds #4783/M402 / A.K. (the One)  
"**The Fix"**

_Updated August 6, 2011_

_World #4783, Hogwarts Castle, 31 October 1991_

"What on earth were you thinking of?" Professor McGonagall said, with cold fury in her voice. Harry looked at Ron, who was still standing with his wand in the air. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

Snape gave Harry a swift, piercing look. Harry looked at the floor. He wished Ron would put his wand down.

Then a small voice came out of the shadows.

"Please, Professor McGonagall — they were looking for me."

"Miss Granger!"

Hermione had managed to get to her feet at last. In a timid voice, she explained that she had gone looking for the mountain troll, believing she could stop it on her own. Ron dropped his wand. When she finished her tale, Harry and Ron managed to put on looks that belied their stupefaction at the falsehoods they had just heard her tell.

"Well — in that case..." said Professor McGonagall, staring at the three of them, "Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"

Hermione hung her head. Harry could hardly believe what he'd heard. Hermione was the last person to do anything against the rules, and here she was, pretending she had, to get them out of trouble. It was as if Snape had started handing out sweets.

"Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this," said Professor McGonagall. "I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses."

Hermione left.

Professor McGonagall turned to Harry and Ron.

"Well, I still say you were lucky, but not many first years could have taken on a full-grown mountain troll. You each win Gryffindor five points. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this. You may go."

They hurried out of the chamber and didn't speak at all until they had climbed two floors up. It was a relief to be away from the smell of the troll, quite apart from anything else.

"We should have gotten more than ten points," Ron grumbled.

"Five, you mean, once she's taken off Hermione's."

"Good of her to get us out of trouble like that," Ron admitted. "Mind you, we did save —"

"Er — e-excuse me, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley." Both of them turned to see Professor Quirrell, who had come up behind them from an adjacent corridor. "I w-wonder if I might get your help with a small m-matter."

"Professor Quirrell?" Harry said, surprised to see the Dark Arts teacher again; they had just left him with Snape and McGonagall in the girl's lavatory. "Are you alright? You looked a bit faint earlier —"

"Yes, I r-remember," Quirrell interrupted, clearly embarrassed at being reminded. "But we needn't dwell on that at the m-moment." He pointed to an empty classroom. "I'd like to show you b-both something."

Harry and Ron looked at one another. Ron was giving him a _well-he's-a-professor_ look, implying that they had to do what he said. Harry looked back at Quirrell. "Sure," he said, and both Gryffindors followed the professor into the room. Glancing up at the turban Quirrell wore, Harry suddenly felt a pain shoot through his scar and he shook his head, reeling from the pain. Ron stopped, taking Harry's arm to steady him.

"Professor, I think something's wrong with Harry — oh!" he jerked in surprise as the door behind them suddenly slammed shut. Quirrell turned around to face them, smiling malevolently. His face wasn't twitching at all.

"Yes," he said, with a cold, hard laugh quite unlike his usual quivering treble. "I'm sure something's wrong with Harry. He senses my master."

Harry was bent over, pressing his hands against his scar, wincing and shaking his head from the pain searing through it. "Your master?" Ron said, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Are you really _that_ dim, boy?" Quirrell snarled, taking out his wand. "Well, no matter — I have no further need of you, only Potter. _Avada Kedavra_!"

Harry watched, horrified, as the green light enveloped Ron, and he fell to the floor dead. His best friend, murdered before his eyes! He spun toward Quirrell, white-hot fury raging within him in spite of the pain in his head and the wand the Dark Arts professor now leveled at him. "You killed him, you bloody bastard! Now I know who you are!"

"Oh?" Quirrell seemed amused at this. "Who am I then, Potter?"

"You're Snape!" Harry spat, with loathing. "You made yourself look like Quirrell, somehow, to fool us long enough so you could get us alone so you could — you could…" Harry couldn't go on.

But Quirrell shook his head. "You're wrong, Potter — I'm _not_ Snape." A malicious grin spread across his features. "Ironically, even _Snape_ is not Snape."

Harry shook his head in confusion. What kind of bizarre riddle was Quirrell posing? "That can't be true! Snape's been after me for months now — and we saw him going into the third floor corridor earlier, where that —" Harry suddenly stopped, remembering what they'd thought the three-headed dog was guarding: the grubby little package that Hagrid had gotten out of vault seven-thirteen at Gringotts on July 31, his birthday.

But Quirrell was nodding. "Yes, indeed, Potter! Where that _three-headed dog_ was guarding something beneath it, under a trapdoor. Would you like to see what it is?" He held up a brown paper package. "He was following me into the corridor, hoping to share in my victory over Dumbledore's foolish trust in Hagrid's hound. 'Snape' was kind enough to retrieve this for me, after I put the dog to sleep, but an unfortunate accident befell him as he came out of the trap door — one of the dog's three heads bit _his_ off."

Harry almost winced in sympathy for Snape, even after all the grief the Potions Master had caused him. "What did you mean, earlier, when you said that Snape wasn't really Snape?" he asked.

"The real Snape died on September first," Quirrell answered coldly. "He was attempting to abduct _you_, Potter, along with several other men, but we found his and Lucius Malfoy's body at the gates of Malfoy Manor, both slashed across the throat. There was quite a bit of running about to bring in someone to replace him at the last moment.

"Fortunately, there was someone who could fill Snape's shoes, and who was willing to do so — Bartemius Crouch, Junior." When Harry didn't react at the name, Quirrell added, "I suspect you're too young to know he was sent to Azkaban shortly after the Dark Lord's 'defeat' at your hands, Potter. His mother was Imperiused and badgered her husband into helping him escape." Quirrell seemed to enjoy describing what had brought them to this point in time. "Once out, we Imperiused Crouch Senior into believing that his son had committed suicide in his home, and the junior Crouch took Snape's place using Polyjuice Potion."

"What's Polyjuice Potion?" Harry asked.

Quirrell snorted. "I hadn't realized until now just how unschooled you are, Potter. Polyjuice Potion allows you to take on the physical form of any human. All you need is a small bit of them, like their hair. Fortunately, Snape's corpse had quite a bit of that, however greasy it was.

"In any event, Crouch has been pretending to be Snape since the beginning of the term. He and I also pretended to be at odds with one another, in case Dumbledore suspected collusion between us. But now that I have the prize, my master can return, and you will be his first victim."

Harry started to back away, but Quirrell snapped his fingers and ropes appeared out of nowhere, binding Harry's arms and legs tightly together. He struggled, but to no avail; the ropes were so tight he could hardly move. Quirrell moved toward him, grabbing Harry by his collar when he started to fall. "There's no point in struggling, boy. We're all going to my master's hideout, where he will tell me how to use the Philosopher's Stone —" he smiled at Harry's startled look. "Ah! So you didn't know what was in this brown bag, then? Interesting…"

"What — what's a Philosopher's Stone?" Harry asked, curious in spite of his predicament.

Quirrell smiled nastily once more. "It's a magical substance, Potter, created through alchemy, that can transform metals into pure gold. It also produces the Elixir of Life, which my master will use to restore himself. Now, enough questions." He reached into his robes, producing an empty vial and tapping it with his wand. The vial glowed blue for a moment, and Quirrell pressed one end of it against Harry's cheek. "In a few moments we'll find ourselves at —"

"_Expelliarmus_!" Quirrell's wand flew from his hand, and both he and Harry turned toward the person who had shouted the Disarming Spell. Amazingly, it was Ron; instead of lying dead on the floor, he was propped up on one elbow, his wand extended toward Quirrell. As they watched, he deftly caught Quirrell's wand between two fingers of his wand hand. Both wands held together, he stood up, still pointing them at Quirrell, who had tossed the vial away just before it glowed blue once again and disappeared.

"Surprised, huh?" Ron said, keeping the wands trained on Quirrell. "Not a very great wizard, are you, if you can't even kill an eleven-year old boy?"

Someone hissed in anger, though the sound came from beneath Quirrell's turban rather than his mouth. A high, clear voice spoke. "Fool! You have failed me once again!" it snarled. A shiver ran down Harry's spine, though Ron seemed unconcerned about the voice emanating from beneath the Dark Arts teacher's turban.

"Never send a pussy to do a Dark Lord's job," Ron said, amusement in his voice. Harry stared at him — this didn't seem like Ron at all! Ron noticed his stare at the same moment. "Oh, I suppose you don't need those ropes anymore." He flicked the wands toward Harry and the ropes fell away in pieces.

At the same moment Quirrell lunged toward Ron, but he suddenly stopped, frozen in place. "Hold that thought," Ron told him, then turned to Harry. "Fortunately, I've been monitoring you and Ron, waiting for another Death Eater attack since they tried to take you back on September first. Otherwise, the both of you would be dead or in Voldemort's clutches by now."

"Me and _Ron_?" Harry shook his head in confusion. "Who are _you_? How did Ron survive the Killing Curse?"

"Did you forget me already, Harry?" As he watched, Ron went suddenly stiff, and a vaporous form seemed to emanate from him, forming a human shape next to him that coalesced into the older, battle-hardened version of Harry known as A.K. He waved the wands at Ron's frozen form, and Ron blinked, shaking his head, as if coming out of a deep sleep. He looked around, starting when he saw Quirrell's frozen form, Harry, and the taller, burlier figure of A.K.

"Bloody hell," he breathed. "What happened to me? Professor Quirrell pointed his wand at me — I don't remember anything after that until just now."

"We'll get to that in a bit," A.K. replied, curtly, then turned back to Harry. "I kept the _Avada Kedavra_ from hitting Ron with a Disillusioned metal shield, then had him play dead until the moment was ripe to strike against Quirrell — and Voldemort."

"_That's_ the voice I heard," Harry realized at that moment. "I wondered why I seemed to know it."

A.K. nodded. "And that's why your scar hurts whenever you look at the back of Quirrell's head. See —" he waved the wands at Quirrell's turban, and it swiftly unraveled itself, revealing another face on the back of Quirrell's head.

Harry took an involuntary step backward. The face was hideous: chalk white, with red eyes that seemed to glare malevolently at them, and slits above the thin mouth where a nose should be.

"Ewww," Ron said, backing away in disgust as Harry had.

"Don't worry," A.K. said. "I put both Voldie and Quirrell in deep freeze—neither of them can harm you, now."

Harry stared at the face on the back of Quirrell's head. "So that's what Voldemort looks like?" he asked.

"Yep," A.K. assented, fishing a pack of smokes out of his pocket and lighting up. "That's Big Ugly. Do you want to kill him or should I?"

Harry looked startled by the question. "Me? Uh, well —"

"Relax, kid," A.K. said, chuckling. I'm just messing with you. Anyway, I doubt you've got the cojones to kill, even if it's someone like Voldemort. I'll take care of it. This one shouldn't be much trouble, seeing as he's almost dead now."

"But how did he survive in the first place?" Harry wanted to know. "Professor Dumbledore —"

"Don't believe everything Dumbledore tells you, kid," A.K. growled. "He keeps a lot of shit close to the vest. Trust me, you don't need to know how Voldie managed to survive the Killing Curse. It's going to be a moot point in a few seconds, anyway."

"You can't just kill him in cold blood, can you?" Ron spoke up. "I mean, you'd be killing Professor Quirrell as well!"

"Do you have a problem with me killing Quirrell?" A.K. asked, blandly.

"Well —" the question bounced around in Ron's head for several seconds. "He's not a very good teacher, but that's not worth killing him over —"

"I don't think you get it, Weasley," A.K. explained to him. "Quirrell has embraced Voldemort's goals of taking over Wizarding Britain, and eventually the world. He deserves to die like every other Death Eater."

Harry and Ron looked at one another, doubt and indecision written all over their faces. But how could they stop a wizard who could freeze Voldemort in his tracks? "Maybe Voldemort deserves death," Harry said. "But I don't think you should kill Professor Quirrell. He could have been controlled or something by Voldemort." Neither Harry nor A.K. noticed Ron wince every time the name "Voldemort" was uttered.

A.K. looked annoyed, but held up a hand in a conciliatory gesture. "Okay, tell you what — I'll pull Voldie out of Quirrell's head and dispatch him, then we can decide what to do with Quirrell. Deal?" That seemed to satisfy both Harry and Ron, and they nodded agreement.

"Good," A.K. said. "The first thing to do, then, is to separate Voldie from Quirrell." He considered a moment. "I have some spells that would do the trick, but let's have some fun with this." He held out his hand and a chuck of black rock materialized in it. "A piece of black riddleite should do it."

"Huh?" Harry looked totally confused, but Ron was grinning.

"I get it," he said, knowingly. "It's like black kryptonite, innit?" Both Harry and A.K. looked at him in surprise. "What?" Ron said, looking defensive. "I read comic books, you know."

"I thought you only read 'Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle,'" Harry objected.

Ron looked sheepish for a moment. "Well, Dad has, um, a few Muggle comics hidden in the garage. Things like _Batman_ and _Superman_ — that's where I read about kryptonite — it's the only substance that can harm Superman." He looked at Harry. "Just don't tell Mum, okay? She'd have a fit if she knew Dad had those comics. It's bad enough he's got an entire Muggle car out in the garage."

"That doesn't tell me what 'black riddleite' is," Harry complained.

"It's a substance that separates a being into its opposite components," A.K. answered, as if that explained everything. "It can also separate Voldemort from a possessed being, if he's taken over that person's body."

"Where did you come up with this stuff?" Harry wanted to know, trying to fathom what this A.K. character was playing at. "If it's just in a comic book, how can you have some of it?"

A.K. smiled proudly. "I'm the man," he said, smugly. "But you already knew that, so never mind. All you need to know now is…this."

A.K. pressed the chunk of rock against the side of Quirrell's head. Both he and Voldemort let out blood-curdling screams. As Harry and Ron watched in horrified fascination, Voldemort's body began extruding from the back of Quirrell's head, finally dropping to the floor with a wet _smack_. A.K. pulled the rock away, canceling the paralysis spell on Quirrell at the same time, and the Dark Arts professor sank bonelessly to the floor. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Gross!" Ron was staring at the small form wiggling around on the floor. It looked like a cross between a human and a snake, hairless and scaly, with dark reddish-black skin that looked raw and flayed. Its face was flat and snakelike as well, with red, gleaming eyes. "This — this is Y-you Know Who?"

"Just call him Voldemort, kid," A.K. told him, wearied by all the flinching the youngest Weasley brother had exhibited in the past few minutes whenever the Dark Lord's name was mentioned. "A few more seconds and he won't ever be able to harm you again."

A.K. pointed his wand at the disgusting Voldemort-fetus. "_Shesep ka a'nen_!" he shouted. The fetus jerked violently, letting out a wail of pain, then went limp.

Harry and Ron were both speechless for several seconds. "What did you do?" Harry finally asked.

"I just cast an Ancient Egyptian Soul-Trapping spell," A.K. said, putting his wands in the back pocket of his fatigues and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. "Before I do anything else, though, it's time for a smoke." He lit up the end of the cigarette in his mouth and inhaled, enjoying the smoke in his lungs.

"What does that spell do?" Ron asked, looking at the limp form of the Voldemort-fetus lying on the floor before them.

"It severs the connections between the soul and any Horcruxes that might exist, and binds the soul so that another Horcrux cannot be created," A.K. said, lazily performing a French inhale with his cigarette smoke. When Ron and Harry looked at each other perplexedly, A.K. added, "Oops, guess I said a bit too much there. Oh, well…a Horcrux is a fragment of a wizard's soul, placed inside an object with a spell that binds it and makes the object nearly indestructible. You can't be permanently killed while you have a Horcrux kept safely somewhere." He looked at Harry. "That's why Voldemort didn't die when his Killing Curse rebounded from you onto him."

"Doesn't Voldemort's Horcrux still exist, somewhere?" Harry asked, perceiving what he thought was a flaw in the plan.

"Oh, there's a plethora of Voldemort Horcruxes out there," A.K. shrugged, taking a final drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out under his boot. "But they're all severed from his soul now — he's mortal again."

A.K. walked over and picked up the Voldemort-fetus off the floor. He stared at it with a hardened indifference that bordered disgust. "It used to be that I had to destroy myself to kill Voldie this way, but that's no longer the case. Now, I can just vaporize him — like so." He pointed a finger at the fetus.

Nothing happened.

A.K. frowned as Harry and Ron continued to watch in horrified confusion. "What the fuck?" he said, pointing his finger again, with the same non-response.

The fetus looked up at him and smiled. "Miss me?" it asked.

"Fuck!" A.K. shouted, hastily dropping the fetus. Instead of falling to the floor, however, it hovered in mid-air and began growing larger and larger, assuming the shape of a naked, skeletally-thin man with pale skin and a flat face with red eyes and slits for nostrils.

A.K. was shaking his head in frank disbelief. "You _cannot_ do that!" he said loudly. "Your magic doesn't have the chops to resist my Power!"

"Shows what you know," the man said, in a high, clear voice. He gestured and a black robe appeared, draping itself over his body. "Did you really think you could destroy the Dark Lord so easily?"

"Fuckin' aye," A.K. snapped. "I've killed hundreds of versions of you, too many to keep track of. What I don't get is why you didn't die, especially when…" A.K.'s voice trailed off.

"Especially when you're a _Power_, right?" the man grinned evilly. "You should be able to do anything you can think of, isn't that right?"

"I —" A.K. began, but a hand went up, cutting him off.

"Hold it a second," the man said. "Before we get any deeper into this conversation, we have a couple of loose ends to tie up." He turned his red, reptilian eyes toward Harry and Ron.

Both of them had been backing slowly toward the door. When the man's gaze met theirs, they screamed, turned, and bolted toward the door. Before they could take more than a step, however, both boys froze in place as a pair of paralysis spells hit them.

At the same time, taking advantage of the man's distraction, A.K. reached back and whipped out the wands in his back pocket, training both of them on the black-robed figure. "_Avada Kedavra_!" he shouted, hoping the Killing Curse would work, but mostly curious to see what would happen. The bolt sped toward the figure, but seemed to hit a shield that exploded it into green sparkles.

The man looked around at A.K., who actually gasped when he saw that there was now a Borg prosthetic over his right eye. "Resistance is futile," the man intoned, then chuckled as the prosthetic vanished. "Relax — I'm just fucking with you, A.K."

"What are you going to do to the kids?" A.K. asked, somewhat apprehensively.

"Not much," the man answered airily. He waved a hand at them. Both Harry and Ron shivered for a moment, then turned toward the door and walked out of the classroom. Their footsteps could be heard receding down the corridor, growing fainter and fainter.

"I erased their memories back to the point where Quirrell accosted them and brought them into this room," the man explained. "They're on their way back to the Gryffindor common room, to finish eating dinner with the other students there. And Harry, Ron and Hermione become friends because of the fight with the troll."

A.K. shook his head. "Excuse me," he said, confusion evident in his tone. "But why do you give a fuck about that?" At that moment the answer hit him. "Ah! You're not Voldemort!"

The pale man tapped the tip of his nose. "Right in one," he said, and his form morphed from Voldemort into James Harrison Monroe, dressed in a polo shirt, slacks and loafers.

"Oh, fucking Satan on a shit-stick," A.K. moaned. "_You_ again? You should be dead — I vaporized you almost two months ago!"

"No," Monroe shook his head. "Well — true, actually, as far as it goes, but that was because I underestimated the extent of your Power back then."

"I guess," A.K. rumbled threateningly, "that means I'm going to have to kill you all over again."

Monroe smiled, shaking his head. "Good luck with that. Maybe you don't get it, A.K., but a true Power _cannot be killed_, even by another Power, unless he allows it. Even then, I believe that the deceased Power would eventually reconstitute himself again over time. That's one of the nice things about being a Power — true immortality."

"Well, fuck," A.K. said, very annoyed at that revelation. "So now what?"

Monroe created a recliner and sat back in it; a bottle of Tres Equis appeared in his hand. "For one thing, you might explain why you were trying to kill Voldemort again, even though you no longer have that Vow forcing you to do so."

A.K. frowned. "Killing Voldemorts is what I _do _— I don't need a stinking oath to keep me on track."

Monroe nodded knowingly. "So it's more of a habit than a compulsion, then."

A.K. snorted. "More like an addiction — I get a real high when I put the smackdown on Voldie."

"Yeah, I believe that," Monroe muttered, half to himself. "Haven't I told you that directly intervening in these alternate universes causes a separate universe to be created, one that balances out whatever changes you made?"

"Yeah, well fuck you," A.K. sneered. "I'm a Power now — I can keep things like that from happening."

"No, you can't," Monroe disagreed. "That property is as innate in the multiverse as our inability to be killed. That's why I got out of the Voldemort-killing business myself, because of the damage it caused to the multiverse. You can avoid that damage if you don't interfere directly; you can help others like the Harry Potter of a specific universe deal with Voldemort, or someone else if Harry's already dead. Even so, I eventually got tired of doing that much."

"Why don't you tell someone who gives a shit?" A.K. said, nastily. "I don't care that you pussied out on killing Voldemorts — just stay the fuck out of my way while I'm taking care of business."

Monroe got to his feet; the recliner and bottle of Tres Equis vanished. "There's just one little problem with that," he said, stepping forward to take A.K. by the arm. A.K. started to pull his arm free when they both vanished in a flash of light.

_World M402_:

They reappeared on a stony hillside in a cold, biting wind. "Recognize this place?" Monroe asked, but didn't wait for a response. "We're in Scotland, at the location where Hogwarts would be. You can see the lake just down there, though it's nowhere the size of the Lake that Hogwarts has."

"So where's Hogwarts —" A.K. began, but just then the bite of the bitterly cold wind made him hunch over. "Aaaaah! That's fucking cold!" he swore, willing his Power to warm him. Nothing happened.

His teeth began chattering. "What the fuck?" he exclaimed, looking at Monroe. "What did you do to my Power?"

"Nothing," Monroe said, placidly. "I'm just giving you an example of its limitations. When you visited 'my' world of origin, were you able to work magic?"

"Of course," A.K. huffed, blowing into his hands. "Why wouldn't I?"

"My world never had magic in it," Monroe explained. "Therefore, you were never in my true origin universe."

"But I saw you there!" A.K. protested, shivering and wishing he could generate enough heat to warm himself. But the magic had gone away, somehow.

"You saw a version of James Harrison Monroe in a universe that had magic in it," Monroe amplified. "Did you ever check to see what became of me there?" A.K. shook his head.

"That version of me never became a Power," Monroe explained. "The Singites never revealed themselves to that version to receive special training — consequently, he lived a more-or-less normal life and died when he was 347 years old, leaving a clone of himself as his only descendant. It's possible that descendant is still alive today, though I estimate it's been several thousand years since 'I' died."

"That's not telling me why I can't use my Power now!" A.K. snapped, still freezing. "I'm a fucking _wizard_, for Satan's sake!"

"Even if your magic is innate, as it is for all wizards in Harry Potter universes, in a completely Muggle universe the rules of magic are null and void.

"When you altered your body using exotic matter, you were doing so using the rules of magic," Monroe continued. "Your Power therefore _depends_ upon magic — without it, you lose your ability to manipulate space-time. I guess we can't even call you a Power — you're more like a Demi-Power. Oh," he added. "I suppose my point's been made, so…" with a flick of his hand the cold wind stopped and the area around them warmed by several degrees.

A.K. was looking profoundly unhappy in spite of the climate change. "Okay," he said, resignedly. "So I'm fucked, I guess. Well, get it over with — vaporize me and be done."

"I probably should," Monroe considered, gazing evenly at his erstwhile opponent. "But something tells me that you're worth giving another chance."

A.K. cocked his head, trying to fathom what Monroe was getting at. "Another try?" he echoed. "What, you mean you're not going to vaporize me?"

"Right," Monroe nodded. "If you like, I'll even teach you how to become a full-fledged Power, capable of traveling anywhere in the multiverse, even to Muggle universes where magic doesn't function."

"What's to say I couldn't learn all that on my own?" A.K. challenged.

Monroe considered a moment. "You probably could," he conceded. "But it took me over one hundred years, even with the Singites feeding me information, before I reached a level of control over reality that made me a Power. With my help," he finished. "It would take you only a few years."

A.K. looked dubiously at the other man. "Why would you do that?" he asked. "I tried to kill you — don't you want to blast me to fucking smithereens?"

"Not really," Monroe said. "Well, maybe a little," he admitted. "But overall, I think it would be better if we cooperated rather than fighting one another for eternity. There's not that many beings in the multiverse capable of becoming a Power. I think you're one of them."

"Hmm," A.K. muttered. He took out a pack of cigarettes, fished one out and stuck it into his mouth. He started to reach for his wand, but remembered and looked at Monroe. "Uh, can you —"

Monroe nodded and the tip of A.K.'s cigarette sparked and lit. A.K. took a drag and exhaled, sighing. "Well, I'd be a fool to turn down your office," he said, almost resentfully.

"Yes, you would," Monroe agreed. "And I don't think you're a fool."

A.K. snorted. "But just so you know, Monroe — I'm going to find a way to defeat you, somehow, no matter how long it takes."

Monroe smiled, clapping A.K. on the back. "A.K., I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." The two of them vanished from universe M402.

**Author's Note: This should be the last chapter of Monroe Vs. A.K. for some time, seeing that they have reconciled (more or less) to become partners. Please review and let me know what you think of the ending and the idea that Monroe and A.K. can be friends.**


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